Hamsun fikk bøkene sine i retur

Av Gro Roksand

2009.11.24

I Nasjonalbibliotekets Hamsun-materiale finnes en notis fra Evening Standard 5. september 1942 som beskriver hvordan boklesere markerte sin avstand fra nazisten Hamsun.

"Extract from Evening Standard 5 Sep. 1942

Reprisal
When Norway's unofficial poet-laureate, long-faced octogenarian Knut Hamsun turned Nazi in 1933, the tolerant Norwegians cared little. They liked his books and continued to buy them. When Hamsun publicly declared himself at one with the Nazi invaders in 1940, the Norwegians boycotted his works and sought less polite means of reprisal. Last month they found the means. They began sending their private copies of Hamsun's works back to the author.

From a thin trickle at the beginning of the month, the daily returns reached thousands last week, and the post office had to hire extra help locally to cart them to Hamsun's estate at Noerrholmen. His neighbours eased the post office's labours by returning books in person.

Halfpenny Bid
The value of Hamsun first editions was pointedly determined at an Oslo book auction the other day. When the auctioneer offered 20 volumes of the first edition of Hamsun's collected works, a pin-drop silence fell on the crowd. At lenght a woman loudly bid five oere (one halfpenny). There was a heated argument when the auctioneer refused to sell the volumes to the woman, the only bidder. Another citizen settled the matter. He offered one crown – about a shilling - for the 20 volumes, then promptly posted them back to Hamsun."

Ansvarlig redaktør: Tone Dahle
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