As the modern industrialised world begins to encroach on a small, isolated coastal town in northern Norway the effect is devastating. For young Edevart, uprooted from his simple origins, it brings progressive alienation from the old traditions; for August, the lying, charming scoundrel, it means opportunities that will threaten the stability of an unspoiled community.


With comic irony and a haunting power, Hamsun charts the slow disintegration of the old way of life in a magnificent novel that provides brilliant insights into human nature: the visiting skipper who is lured to his death by Ane Marie because, hurtfully, he did not makes advances to her; the old watch seller who is as ready to cheat himself as he is to swindle others; the poignant, painful love affair between Edevart and the barefoot Lovise Magrete.


Written seven years after Hamsun received the Nobel Prize for literature, Wayfarers is a masterpiece by one of the great novelists of the twentieth century.

Translated by: J. McFarlane