Sigrid Undset
1882–1949
Biography
Sigrid Undset was a novelist who was born in Denmark in 1882, grew up in Norway and is usually counted among Norwegian writers. Her early novels, set in the past, date from 1907, and in 1928 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. When Germany invaded and occupied Norway, she opposed the Nazi regime and left for the United States in 1940. She came back home after the war in Europe ended in 1945, and she died in 1949.
Kristin Lavransdatter, the book for which she is most celebrated, is a trilogy that traces one woman's entire life in medieval Norway, from her early years to her death. Its three volumes appeared between 1920 and 1922, and it is the work for which she is best remembered.
The book on this site is Jenny, a novel of 1911 that is widely regarded as her breakthrough as a novelist. It is set first in Rome and later in Norway, and its heroine, Jenny Winge, tries to build a career as a painter. Readers who come to Undset through Kristin Lavransdatter will find here an earlier and more modern study of a young woman's ambitions.
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Books
Jenny: Roman
by Sigrid Undset
Jenny Winge, a young Norwegian painter, is living in Rome among a small circle of Scandinavian artists, set on making her own way in work and in love. When she lets herself be courted by Helge Gram, an earnest young scholar, she begins to measure what she wants against what is…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.