INTRODUCTION BY JO NESBØ
AFTERWORD BY PAUL AUSTER

Nineteenth-century Kristiania is an unforgiving place, and work is thin on the ground. Roaming the streets of Norway's capital, a penniless young writer searches for inspiration whilst trying desperately to make ends meet. Driven to extraordinary lengths, sleeping under the stars with his stomach growling, the writer's behaviour becomes increasingly irrational and his world spirals into chaos.

Hunger was Knut Hamsun's first novel and earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920. A disturbing and darkly humorous masterpiece of existential fiction, Hunger anticipated and influenced some of the twentieth century's most acclaimed writers including Camus, Kafka and Fante.

Our Booksellers Say...

"Top of my list and possibly one of my favourite books in general is Knut Hamsun's Hunger. An unnamed man wanders the streets of Oslo, pawning his few belongings to afford food and constructing wild fantasies to soothe his ego to endure his circumstances. It was written in the late-1800s but feels just as relevant today, sort of a cost-of-living crisis book for the ages!"
Red Newsom, Bookseller at Blackwell's Manchester