Giants in the Earth - (Perennial Classics) by OLE Edvart Rolvaag (Paperback)

About the Book

"The classic story of a Norwegian pioneer family's struggles with the land and the elements of the Dakota Territory as they try to make a new life in America."--Publisher's marketing.

Book Synopsis

"The fullest, finest, and most powerful novel that has been written about pioneer life in America."--The Nation

O. E. Rolvaag's classic novel of a family of Norwegian settlers in the Great Plains--a vivid and intimate portrait of the nineteenth-century immigrant experience and the exploration of America

Based in part on Ole Edvart Rølvaag's own recollections as well of those of his wife's family who were immigrant homesteaders, Giants in the Earth is the riveting story of a Norwegian family forging a new life amid the harsh, desolate climate of the Dakota Territory. Rølvaag recounts the hardships they endured on the high prairie--blizzards, locust storms, poverty, hunger, loneliness, homesickness, and culture shock--as well as their simple joys, culminating in a magnificent epic that bridges Norwegian culture and the history of the American dream.

"A moving narrative of pioneer hardship and heroism. . . . The background of the boundless Dakota prairie, with its mysterious distances and its capacity for evil, is painted with alternating beauty and grimness." --The Atlantic

From the Back Cover

The classic story of a Norwegian pioneer family's struggles with the land and the elements of the Dakota Territory as they try to make a new life in America.

Review Quotes

"A moving narrative of pioneer hardship and heroism...The background of the boundless Dakota prairie, with its mysterious distances and its capacity for evil, is painted with alternating beauty and grimness." -- The Atlantic

"A firmly woven tapestry of harsh texture wrought by a master sure in his choice of strong fiber and of color, telling with heroic gesture and intricate design its legend of simple people struggling in the eternal coil of unwitting life." -- Times Literary Supplement (London)

"That in Giants in the Earth this Norwegian American immigrant has made a distinct contribution to the literature of two countries there is no doubt. . . . It has a bare simplicity which is cumulative in effectiveness." -- New York Times

"The fullest, finest, and most powerful novel that has been written about pioneer life in America." -- The Nation