Giants in the Earth

(Paperback)

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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 Plainsa vivid and intimate portrait of the nineteenth-century immigrant experience and the exploration of America

Based in part on Ole Edvart Rlvaags own recollections as well of those of his wifes 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. Rlvaag recounts the hardships they endured on the high prairieblizzards, locust storms, poverty, hunger, loneliness, homesickness, and culture shockas 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

Reviews

"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

Author Bio

O. E. Rlvaag was born in 1876. His books include Peder Victorious and Their Fathers' God. He died in 1931.