Johan Bojer

Johan Bojer was a popular Norwegian novelist and dramatist who wrote about the lives of the poor farmers and fishermen, both in his native Norway and among the Norwegian immigrants in the United States. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. He grew up as a foster child in a poor family in Rissa near Trondheim, and learned the realities of poverty early. He worked as a farmhand and a bookkeeper before becoming a writer. His literary work began with the publication of Unge tanker in 1893, and continued to gather strength through the 1920s. He gained international fame after many of his works were translated into foreign languages. Some of his most acclaimed novels are The Power of a Lie, The Great Hunger, The Last of the Vikings, The Emigrants, and The Everlasting Struggle. He also wrote several plays, such as The New System, The Struggle for the Soil, and The Voice of the Blood. He traveled extensively and visited the United States, where he researched the lives of the Norwegian immigrants. He died in 1959 at the age of 87.