Fun Facts Friday: Sigrid Undset

Sigrid Undset (20 May 1882 – 10 June 1949) was a Norwegian novelist known for her trilogy about life in the middle ages called Kristin Lavransdatter.

Books by Sigrid Undset*

Fun Facts about Sigrid Undset:

Sigrid Undset was born in Kalundborg, Denmark, a small town on the largest Danish island, Zealand. Her father, Ingvald Martin Undset, was an archeologist.
Ingvald and Charlotte Undset moved with their three daughters to Kristiania in 1925. Kristiania was the Norwegian capital, it changed it’s name to Oslo in 1925.
When she was 11 years old, Ingvald Undset passed away after a long illness. As the eldest daughter, Sigrid had to help with the household bills and started working as a secretary at age 16. She worked in the company that hired her for the next 10 years, but later on stated that she despised that job.
While working, Sigrid Undset studied and wrote. The manuscript, set in the Nordic Middle Ages, she started at age 16 was finished with she was 22, however the publishing houses weren’t interested.
Not giving up, Ms. Undset continue to write and two years later completed another manuscript. This one about a middle-class woman in Kristiana of the day. The book, published as Fru Marta Oulie, scandalized Norwegian readers from the first line: “I have been unfaithful to my husband.”
Making her successful literary debut, Sigrid Undset found herself on the lists of promising young Norwegian authors. She published several more novels, all or most set in Kristiana, dealing mostly with family issues and the “immoral kind” of love.
The books sold well, and she was ready to leave the job she hated after her third book. Using a writer’s scholarship she traveled throughout Europe.
During her travels she met many artists and writers, including Anders Castus Svarstad, a painter who became her husband three years later. The couple had three children, and three children from Svarstad’s previous marriage. The couple divorced in 1919 while she was living in Lillehammer where she chose to stay and concentrated on her writing.
Once having a secured income and home, Sigrid Undset set out to write the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy of Norwegian historical novels. The trilogy encompasses The Wreath (Kransen, 1920), The Wife (Husfrue, 1921) and The Cross (Korset, 1922). The books follow Kristin Lavransdatter, a 14th century Norwegian.
Sigrid Undset was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1928 for “principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages.” She donated the prize for the Finish War effort during the Winter War.