Sigrid Undset won the 1928 Nobel Prize in Literature and wrote Kristin Lavransdatter.
Undset was a Norwegian novelist best known for Kristin Lavransdatter, a trilogy set in fourteenth-century Norway. Published from 1920 to 1922, it follows Kristin’s life from childhood through adulthood, marriage, motherhood, and religious struggle.
The trilogy is notable for its detailed historical setting and psychologically complex characters. Undset also wrote The Master of Hestviken, another historical sequence, and many works set in contemporary Norway.
Undset converted to Roman Catholicism in 1924, an important influence on her later writing. During World War II she fled Norway after the German invasion and lived in the United States before returning after liberation.