Novel
Pelle the Conqueror
Pelle Erobreren
Martin Andersen Nexø · 1910
Opening lines
Det var den første Maj 1877, lige i Dagningen. Fra Søen kom Taagen fejende, i et graat Slæb der laa tungt paa Vandet.
It was the first of May 1877, just at daybreak. The fog came sweeping in from the sea in a grey trail that lay heavy on the water.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
In 1877, Lasse Karlsson, a widower, and his son Pelle, eight years old, leave Sweden for Bornholm, where they are hired as farmhands on a large farm. The father had promised a better life; the child discovers the room at the end of the cowshed, the contempt reserved for Swedes and the harshness of the foreman. He tends the animals, learns the language, fights, grows up, then leaves the farm to learn a trade in town. At eighteen, he leaves for Copenhagen, where the misery of the workers awaits him.
Context
The four volumes appeared from 1906 to 1910: childhood, apprenticeship, the great struggle, the break of day. The author draws there on much of what he had lived through on Bornholm, where he had tended animals and learned a trade. The book was translated into English by Jessie Muir and Bernard Miall, and it has been compared to Les Misérables. In 1987, Bille August adapted the first volume; among some three thousand children tried out, the boy chosen bore, like many Danes of his generation, the name of the hero.
Who it is for
Four volumes and more than a thousand pages, in a simple, slow prose. The first, on childhood, can be read on its own and remains the most read in Denmark.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as essential reading in Denmark; the film based on its first volume received the Palme d'Or in 1988 and the Oscar for best foreign film.
Sources for this page 11
The pages consulted to check this page.