New Releases by Sigrid Undset

The collection includes the great novel Jenny, two short stories and selected letters.

“[Sigrid Undset] should be the next Elena Ferrante.” —Slate A Penguin Classic Kristin Lavransdatter interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life to create a colorful, richly detailed tapestry of Norway during the fourteenth-century. The trilogy, however, is more than a journey into the past. Undset''s own life—her familiarity with Norse sagas and folklore and with a wide range of medieval literature, her experiences as a daughter, wife, and mother, and her deep religious faith—profoundly influenced her writing. Her grasp of the connections between past and present and of human nature itself, combined with the extraordinary quality of her writing, sets her works far above the genre of "historical novels." This new translation by Tina Nunnally—the first English version since Charles Archer''s translation in the 1920s—captures Undset''s strengths as a stylist. Nunnally, an award-winning translator, retains the natural dialog and lyrical flow of the original Norwegian, with its echoes of Old Norse legends, while deftly avoiding the stilted language and false archaisms of Archer''s translation. In addition, she restores key passages left out of that edition. Undset''s ability to present a meticulously accurate historical portrait without sacrificing the poetry and narrative drive of masterful storytelling was particularly significant in her homeland. Granted independence in 1905 after five hundred years of foreign domination, Norway was eager to reclaim its national history and culture. Kristin Lavransdatter became a touchstone for Undset''s contemporaries, and continues to be widely read by Norwegians today. In the more than 75 years since it was first published, it has also become a favorite throughout the world. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

“[Sigrid Undset] should be the next Elena Ferrante.” —Slate A Penguin Classic Kristin Lavransdatter interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life to create a colorful, richly detailed tapestry of Norway during the fourteenth-century. The trilogy, however, is more than a journey into the past. Undset''s own life—her familiarity with Norse sagas and folklore and with a wide range of medieval literature, her experiences as a daughter, wife, and mother, and her deep religious faith—profoundly influenced her writing. Her grasp of the connections between past and present and of human nature itself, combined with the extraordinary quality of her writing, sets her works far above the genre of "historical novels." This new translation by Tina Nunnally—the first English version since Charles Archer''s translation in the 1920s—captures Undset''s strengths as a stylist. Nunnally, an award-winning translator, retains the natural dialog and lyrical flow of the original Norwegian, with its echoes of Old Norse legends, while deftly avoiding the stilted language and false archaisms of Archer''s translation. In addition, she restores key passages left out of that edition. Undset''s ability to present a meticulously accurate historical portrait without sacrificing the poetry and narrative drive of masterful storytelling was particularly significant in her homeland. Granted independence in 1905 after five hundred years of foreign domination, Norway was eager to reclaim its national history and culture. Kristin Lavransdatter became a touchstone for Undset''s contemporaries, and continues to be widely read by Norwegians today. In the more than 75 years since it was first published, it has also become a favorite throughout the world. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The first historical novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Kristin Lavransdatter A Penguin Classic More than a decade before writing Kristin Lavransdatter, the trilogy about fourteenth-century Norway that won her the Nobel Prize, Sigrid Undset published Gunnar’s Daughter, a brief, swiftly moving tale about a more violent period of her country’s history, the Saga Age. Set in Norway and Iceland at the beginning of the eleventh century, Gunnar''s Daughter is the story of the beautiful, spoiled Vigdis Gunnarsdatter, who is raped by the man she had wanted to love. A woman of courage and intelligence, Vigdis is toughened by adversity. Alone she raises the child conceived in violence, repeatedly defending her autonomy in a world governed by men. Alone she rebuilds her life and restores her family''s honor—until an unremitting social code propels her to take the action that again destroys her happiness. First published in 1909, Gunnar''s Daughter was in part a response to the rise of nationalism and Norway''s search for a national identity in its Viking past. But unlike most of the Viking-inspired art of its period, Gunnar''s Daughter is not a historical romance. It is a skillful conversation between two historical moments about questions as troublesome in Undset''s own time—and in ours—as they were in the Saga Age: rape and revenge, civil and domestic violence, troubled marriages, and children made victims of their parents'' problems.

Essayister) ISBN 82-504-2312-7 Sigrid Undset var intens engasjert i sin samtid og skrev en rekke artikler om litterære, historiske, sosiale, moralske og religiøse emner. Liv Bliksrud har redigert dette utvalget. Forhåndsomtale.

After the death of his wife, Olav Audunsson leaves on a journey to Oslo where a fierce and bloody struggle may not be enough to redeem him from past violations.

Powerfully written and filled with magnificent vignettes of the daily life of a medieval estate, The Son Avenger suggests a Greek tragedy whose vision of fate coexists with a Christian sense of suffering and forgiveness. And in the somber, twilight figure of Olav the Bad, Undset has created an antihero as moving as Oedipus or King Lear.

A Scandinavian classic by the recipient of the 1928 Nobel Prize for Literature. The trilogy provides a dynastic account of life in a medieval community. Kristin is a daughter of the Dark Ages and the time when faith in the old gods has receded in the wake of the new religion, Christianity.

Set in medieval Norway, The Snake Pit follows Olav and Ingunn, who, though raised as brother sister, have become lovers in a world caught between the fading sphere of pagan worship and vendettas and the expansion of Christianity.

The author recalls the invasion of her native Norway in the spring of 1940, her retreat to Sweden and her trip across Russia and Siberia to Japan, and finally across the Pacific to the United States.

Sigurd falls in love with a young girl after sixteen years of happy Norwegian family life.