The Great Hunger

Norwegian fjords, ships, storms and a large shark that wants to take off your arm ...thank goodness our main character Peer manages to stab it with a knife!

Peer is a young lad who, deserted by his parents, is tossed about like second-hand clothing from one foster home to the next. Surprisingly he demonstrates a tremendous amount of resilience in overcoming his social and economic standing, just like his creator and the author of this novel, Johan Bojer.

This story examines how an individual's yearning for knowledge in science and religion causes problems, as many intellectuals in the early twentieth century thought them mutually exclusive. This leads Peer into many situations beyond his control.

The hunger in the book's title has little to do with being starved of food and much to do with being starved of education and knowledge.

Read this classic rags to riches story with an unexpected twist at the end! Johan Bojer (born Johan Kristoffer Hansen) was a popular Norwegian novelist and dramatist. He grew up as a foster child in a poor family living in Rissa near Trondheim, Norway. He learned of the realities of poverty early in his life. Bojer principally 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 and is best remembered for his novel 'The Emigrants', a major novel dealing with the motivations and trials of Norwegians emigrated on the plains of North Dakota.