Hunger

A true classic of modern literature that has been described as "one of the most disturbing novels in existence" ("Time Out"), Hunger is the story of a Norwegian artist who wanders the streets, struggling on the edge of starvation. As hunger overtakes him, he slides inexorably into paranoia and despair. The descent into madness is recounted by the unnamed narrator in increasingly urgent and disjointed prose, as he loses his grip on reality.
Knut Hamsun (1859-1952) was a Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.
A true classic of modern literature--and a forerunner of the psychologically driven fiction of Kafka, Camus, and Saramago--"Hunger" is the story of a Norwegian artist who wanders the streets of Christiania (now Olso), struggling on the edge of starvation while trying to sell his articles to the local newspaper. As the hunger overtakes his body and his mind, the writer slides inexorably into paranoia and despair. The descent into madness is recounted by the unnamed narrator in increasingly urgent and disjointed prose as he loses his grip on his body and on reality itself. At the end--for reasons that remain unclear--he suddenly decides to sign on as a crewman aboard a ship and leave the city behind, saving himself from his otherwise certain death. Arising from Hamsun's belief that literature ought to be about the mysterious workings of the human mind--an attempt as he wrote, to describe "the whisper of the blood and the pleading of the bone marrow"--"Hunger" is a landmark work that pointed the way toward a new kind of novel. "The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun. They were all Hansun's disciples: Thomas Mann and Arthur Schnitzler . . . and even such American writers as Fitzgerald and Hemingway."--Isaac Bashevis Singer
"Something new is happening here, some new thought about the nature of art is being proposed in "Hunger." An art that is indistinguishable from the life of the artist who makes it . . . an art that is the direct expression of the effort to express itself."--Paul Auster, from the Introduction "The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun. They were all Hamsun's disciples: Thomas Mann and Arthur Schnitzler . . . and even such American writers as Fitzgerald and Hemingway."--Isaac Bashevis Singer
"One of the most disturbing novels in existence."--"Time Out
""After reading "Hunger," one can easily understand why Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. "Hunger "should appeal to any reader who is interested in a masterpiece by one of this century's great novelists."--James Goldwasser, "Detroit News"