Knut Hamsun, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920 for Growth of the Soil, wrote his first novel, Hunger, in 1890.
It is not a pleasant novel to read, although it keeps the reader in suspense, waiting for something to happen. It contains elements of the naturalism and realism characteristic of its time, but Hunger marks the beginning of what would later be called the psychological novel.
A character whose name, age, and social status remain unknown wanders through the city of Christiania, later renamed Oslo, day after day, with nothing to eat. The only thing we know about him is that he wants to be a writer—above all else, a writer. He tries, but he is not always consistent in pursuing his goal.
Starving, he attempts to satisfy his needs in a variety of ways. He encounters people as strange as himself, with whom he maintains peculiar relationships, and when he manages to obtain some money, he is still incapable of showing enough sense to buy food. He quickly loses or gives away the money, as if his mission were precisely that: to go hungry.
On the few occasions when he succeeds in satisfying his hunger, the relief is short-lived, and he soon returns to his previous condition. One is tempted to think that he goes hungry because he wants to, because he wants to be a writer and nothing else. He lives on the edge of self-destruction, yet he always finds a way to avoid it. His defense is irony, perhaps so that the reader does not come to feel pity for the famished protagonist.