Hunger: A Novel (Illustrated) (eMagination 50 Classics Book 1)

Hunger (Norwegian: Sult) is a novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun published in 1890. The novel has been hailed as the literary opening of the 20th century and an outstanding example of modern, psychology-driven literature. Knut Hamsun was a Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1920.

The book was translated by Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright, better know by her pen name George Egerton. Egerton was widely considered to be one of the most important of the "New Woman" writers of the nineteenth century

Hunger portrays the irrationality of the human mind in an intriguing and sometimes humorous manner. The novel's first-person protagonist, an unnamed vagrant with intellectual leanings, probably in his late twenties, wanders the streets of Norway's capital, Oslo, in pursuit of nourishment. Over four episodes he meets a number of more or less mysterious persons, the most notable being Ylajali, a young woman with whom he engages in a mild degree of physical intimacy. He exhibits a self-created code of chivalry, giving money and clothes to needy children and vagrants, not eating food given to him, and turning himself in for stealing. Essentially self-destructive, he thus falls into traps of his own making, and with a lack of food, warmth and basic comfort, his body turns slowly to ruin...