Kristin Lavransdatter: Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition by Sigrid Undset (English

Description: Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, Tiina Nunnally, Brad Leithauser The Nobel-laureate author tells the life story of a passionate and headstrong woman in the 14th century. She paints a richly detailed backdrop of day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description " Sigrid Undset should be the next Elena Ferrante." -SlateThe turbulent historical masterpiece of Norways literary masterA Penguin ClassicIn her great historical epicKristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses readers in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tiina Nunnallys award-winning definitive translation brings this remarkable work to life with clarity and lyrical beauty.As a young girl, Kristin is deeply devoted to her father, a kind and courageous man. But when as a student in a convent school she meets the charming and impetuous Erlend Nikulauss n, she defies her parents in pursuit of her own desires. Her saga continues through her marriage to Erlend, their tumultuous life together raising seven sons as Erlend seeks to strengthen his political influence, and finally their estrangement as the world around them tumbles into uncertainty.With its captivating heroine and emotional potency, Kristin Lavransdatter is the masterwork of Norways most beloved author-one of the twentieth centurys most prodigious and engaged literary minds-and, in Nunnallys exquisite translation, a story that continues to enthrall.This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition includes an introduction by Brad Leithauser and features French flaps and deckle-edged paper.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators. Author Biography Sigrid Undset(1882-1949) was born in Denmark, the eldest daughter of a Norwegian father and a Danish mother. Two years after her birth, the family moved to Oslo, where her father, a distinguished archaeologist, taught at the university. Her fathers interest in the past had a tremendous influence on Undset. She was particularly entranced by the dramatic Old Norse sagas she read as a child, later declaring that her exposure to them marked "the most important turning point in my life."Undsets first published works-the novelMrs. Marta Oulie(1907) and a short-story collection,The Happy Age(1908)-were set in contemporary times and achieved both critical and popular success. With her reputation as a writer well-established, Undset had the freedom to explore the world that had first fired her imagination, and inGunnars Daughter(1909) she drew upon her knowledge of Norways history and legends, including the Icelandic Sagas, to recreate medieval life with compelling immediacy. In 1912, Undset married the painter Anders Castus Svarstad and over the next ten years faced the formidable challenge of raising three stepchildren and her own three off-spring with little financial or emotional support from her husband. Eventually, she and her children moved from Oslo to Lillehammer, and her marriage was annulled in 1924, when Undset converted to Catholicism.Although Undset wrote more modern novels, a collection of essays on feminism, as well as numerous book reviews and newspaper articles, her fascination with the Middle Ages never ebbed, and in 1920 she publishedThe Wreath, the first volume of her most famous work,Kristin Lavransdatter. The next two volumes quickly followed-The Wifein 1921, andThe Crossin 1922. The trilogy earned Undset worldwide acclaim, and her second great medieval epic-the four-volumeThe Master of Hestviken(1925-1927)-confirmed her place as one of the twentieth centurys greatest writers. In 1928, at the age of 46, she received the Nobel Prize in Literature, only the third woman to be so honored.Undset went on to publish more novels-including the autobiographicalThe Longest Years-and several collections of essays during the 1930s. As the Germans advanced through Norway in 1940, Undset, an outspoken critic of Nazism, fled the country and eventually settled in Brooklyn, New York. She returned to her homeland in 1945, and two years later she was awarded Norways highest honor for her "distinguished literary work and for service to her country." The years of exile, however, had taken a great toll on her, and she died of a stroke on June 10, 1949.Brad Leithauser is the author of several novels, four volumes of poetry, and a collection of essays. He is the Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College. Review [Sigrid Undset] should be the next Elena Ferrante . . . If HBO is looking for its next miniseries, it should give Kristin Lavransdatter the proper adaptation it deserves. This trilogy includes illicit sex, affairs, a church fire, an attempted rape, ocean voyages, rebellious virgins cooped up in a convent, predatory priests, an attempted human sacrifice, floods, fights, murders, violent suicide, a gay king, drunken revelry, the Bubonic Plague, deathbed confessions, and sex that makes its heroine ache with astonishment - that this was the iniquity that all the songs were about -- Ruth Graham * Slate *Tiina Nunnallys magnificent version revitalised Undsets epic in English: each page glows and sparkles like the landscapes she so wonderfully evokes -- Boyd Tonkin * The 100 Best Novels in Translation *[My favourite fictional hero or heroine is] probably Sigrid Undsets strong-willed, sensual, self-destructive and ultimately rock-solid Kristin Lavransdatter. . . . Right away one somehow identifies with this daughter of medieval Norway; soon one compassionates her in her sufferings. . . . Like Murasaki and Dos Passos, Undset tells the story of a whole life -- William T. Vollman * The New York Times Book Review *At certain points, Kristin Lavransdatter felt more real than the life I was living -- Lucia Tang * Electric Lit *The Nunnally translation is excellent - straightforward but also evocative, lyrical enough in places, but not, like earlier translations, overly romantic or archaic.... Every detail of Kristin Lavransdatter is significant, because the author knows what every detail means and how they all fit together. This makes the novel a rich and satisfying read -- Jane SmileyWe consider it the best book our judges have ever selected and it has been better received by our subscribers than any other book * Book-of-the-Month Club *The finest historical novel our 20th century has yet produced; indeed it dwarfs most of the fiction of any kind that Europe has produced in the last twenty years * Contemporary Movements in European Literature *As a novel it must be ranked with the greatest the world knows today * Montreal Star *Sigrid Undsets trilogy embodies more of life, seen understandingly and seriously . . . than any novel since Dostoevskys Brothers Karamazov * Commonweal *The first great story founded upon the normal events of a normal womans existence. It is as great and as rich, as simple and as profound, as such a story should be * Des Moines Register *No other novelist, past or present, has bodied forth the medieval world with such richness and fullness of indisputable genius. . . . One of the finest minds in European literature * New York Herald Tribune *A master . . . writing in a prose as vigorous, articulate and naturalistic as the novel it re-creates, Tiina Nunnally brilliantly captures a world both remote and strangely familiar -- Judges citation, PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize Review Quote "We consider it the best book our judges have ever selected and it has been better received by our subscribers than any other book," says the Book-of-the-Month Club. Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide INTRODUCTION In Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1922), Sigrid Undset 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. Undsets 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 Tiina Nunnally--the first English version since Charles Archers translation in the 1920s--captures Undsets 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 Archers translation. In addition, she restores key passages left out of that edition, including a sexually explicit love scene and several conversations among the characters that offer crucial insights into their feelings and motivation. In depicting her countrys vanished culture, Undset, like others in the Modernist era, rejected the romantic view of the past prevalent in mid-nineteenth century literature, music, and art--from Tennysons fanciful retelling of the Arthurian legends, Idylls of the King to Wagners musical interpretations of Germanic myths to the dreamy paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite artists. Her realistic, unvarnished approach, as A.H. Winsnes notes in his biography, Sigrid Undset: A Study in Christian Realism , has led many scholars to call her "The Zola of Middle Ages." Undsets 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 Undsets 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. When The Wreath first appeared in English, the New York Times hailed it as "strong and dramatic, founded upon those emotions and impulses which belong not to any especial time or country, but to all humanity." Against the background of a society ruled by centuries-old Norse traditions and the strictures of the Catholic Church (first established in Norway in tenth century), Undset tells the story of a headstrong young woman who defies the expectations of her much-beloved father, the lessons of her priest, and conventions of society when she is captivated by a charming and dangerously impetuous man. The courtship of Kristin Lavransdatter and Erlend Nikulauss Details ISBN0143039164 Author Brad Leithauser Short Title KRISTIN LAVRANSDATTER Language English Translator Tiina Nunnally ISBN-10 0143039164 ISBN-13 9780143039167 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Birth 1882 Death 1949 Residence NO DOI 10.1604/9780143039167 US Release Date 2005-09-27 Imprint Penguin Classics Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom UK Release Date 2022-07-28 Pages 1168 Publisher Penguin Books Ltd Series The Kristin Lavransdatter Trilogy Year 2022 Publication Date 2022-07-28 Subtitle Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Audience General NZ Release Date 2006-07-19 AU Release Date 2006-07-19 Translated from Norwegian We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137749722;

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