The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-12-10
EX-CHICACO MOTOR
NAN WINS $4,000
NOBEL PRIZE
Knut Hamsun, Now of Norway, Had
Bitter Experiences In United
States, But Developed
His Art Here.

New York. Dee. i8-Knut Hamsun
of ~harvik, Norway, former Chicago
street motorman, who to-day receives
the $4,000 Nobel price for literature,
has had as adventurous a career as ever
befell any Of his Viking forefathers.
Fifty.year -old poet mystic and re-
cluse, at the height of his fame, Ham
sun six months ago was practically I'M
known outside of Scandinavia He was
born in Gulbrandstal on Aug. 4, 1860,
and while working as young shoe
maker apprentice wrote some little
poems which, showed him to possess a
most original and peculiar style.
Young Hamsun did not take kindly
to pegging soles and, longing for ad-
venture, shipped as cabin boy at
Christiania and came to the United
States. Subsequently he became a min
er, clerk in store and a Chicago mo-
torman. Fellow countrymen who knew
him in America at that time said that
he wrote occasional sketches and
poems and showed marked tendencies
toward atheism and anarchism. Strick
en- with what he believed to be a fatal
illness Hamsun abandoned his radical
ideas and, for short time. pursued
the study of religious mysticism.
The authors bitter experiences in
America seem to have schooled him for
the famous man of letters he was later
to become. Always homesick for his
native land, he finally reached Copen-
hagen, penniless and alone. So dis
tressing was his plight that he found
lodgings in garrett and sought to
starve himself to death He longed to
die and yet the instinct for self preser
walton forbade him entering "The
Great Unknown" II was during this
great life-and death struggle that
sketch entitled, Hunger" which, print
ed in Danish paper, placed its author
in the first rank of Scandinavian writ
ers.
Later Hamsun wrote a novel of the
same title, Hunger" which proved to
be another mastery and impressive an
alysis of the human soul. Success came
to him over night, as it were, and the
next morning Scandinavians were ac-
claiming him as their greatest living
poet" In spite of this adulation, Ham
sun held himself aloof from society and
tried to escape all worldly honors. He
sought retirement in hut in the for
est near Gulbrandstal and when ad.
mirers tried to find him there he went
further north to the almost inaccessi-
Bile little farm where he had lived as a
child.
Among the notable contributions to
literature by this Norwegian genius
are his novels entitled, Mysteries, y
Editor LANCE" and the love story
called PAN" Other writings are his
brisk, Honor to the Young" defiance
of old age: his eccentric work, "A
Wanderer Plays with a Sardine,' his
satire of the drama. Gotten by the
Devil" the trilogy, "At the Door of the
Wealthy" Queen Tamara,1. said TO be
the best drama and 'Munken Vendt," a
picture of the life of debauched theo-
logan.
Hamsun in all his writings for the
theater, it is said, has shown contempt
of dramatic art and technique. His nov
els have been called IAN ola prodrida
of rude realism, dreamy mysticism and
impulsive sentiment" He has been
credited with fine sense Of phantasy
and penetrating intellect in exposing
the weaknesses of modern life.