UNDSET, SIGRID. - Norwegian novelist, b. at Kallundborg (Denmark) on 20 May 1882, d. at Lillehammer (Norway) on 10 June 1949. Her father was a distinguished Norwegian archaeologist; when U., still a young girl, lost him, she was forced to take employment to earn a living. She married the Norwegian painter A. S. Svarestad, from whom she divorced in 1925, keeping with her the four children she had borne him.
Her first novels reflect her experiences and her difficulties and are stories of young women whose lives contrast bitterly with their ideals. Of these the most remarkable as a study of feminine psychology is Jenny (1911), written after a journey to Italy, to which may be added the volume of short stories Fattige Skjaebner (1912). The interest that U. felt for Catholic medieval Europe is already attested by her adaptation of the Arthurian legends: Kong Artur og riddere af det rund bord (1915) and by other writings inspired by the Middle Ages in Norway; her major work, Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-22)
is set in the Catholic Norway of the 14th century. Alongside this voluminous trilogy, which is U.'s masterpiece, one should recall her other novel of medieval and national setting: Audunssön (1925-27). Having converted to Catholicism in 1926, U. wrote pamphlets and articles of religious exegesis, delving ever more deeply into the study of philosophy and of the spiritual literature of Christianity. She was in Italy on other occasions. Having abandoned medieval subjects, she returned to subjects of contemporary life, publishing other notable novels, among them Den brændende busk (1930), Den trofaste hustru (1936), Madame Dorothea (1939), the latter among her major works. In 1940, during the German occupation of Norway, she was forced to take refuge first in Sweden and then in the United States, returning to her homeland after the war. In 1928 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
Bibliography2 works
Augusto Guidi