SOURCE: "Johan Bojer," in The American-Scandinavian Review, Vol. XIV, No. 4, April, 1926, pp. 207-17.

In the following essay, Lodrup surveys critical opinion of Bojer during his lifetime and discusses several of the author's major works.

The Norwegian people are gifted artistically but not gifted politically. Therefore we have a disproportionately large number of great writers and distinguished artists, while we have an equally disproportionate dearth of statesmen. It is our peasantry that has been the fountainhead of artistic genius among us, and from this part of our population Bojer sprang. In being self-taught, or as Americans say self-made, he resembles many other Norwegian poets and artists, though he is probably the one who has had the most unpropitious start and the greatest difficulties to overcome. With it all, he has attained success in life.

Johan Bojer was a poor fatherless child, put out to board with a woman in...