THE NOBEL PRIZE

I am fat with honor and wealth tonight – yes, but I lack the most important thing, the only thing, I lack youth. Whatever I should now – whatever suits me best – I empty my glass for all youth, for the youth of Sweden, for all youth! (From the speech at the Nobel Prize banquet, 1920)

Knut Hamsun received the Nobel Prize in 1920 for the novel The Harvest of the Field (1917).

He had been nominated for the same novel in 1919, but the prize went to the Swiss Carl Spitteler's Olympischer Frühling (1906). In his presentation speech, the chairman of the Nobel Committee, Harald Hjärne, made it clear that it was this one book of his work that had been considered and found worthy of the prize. None of Hamsun's other novels were mentioned, and Markens grøde was not compared to any other literature than the Greek Hesiod's instructive poem on agriculture, Works and Days (around 700 BC).

During the award ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, Hamsun gave a short, personal acceptance speech in which he paid tribute to youth and everything young in life.

After celebrating the award ceremony at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Hamsun was helped to bed fully dressed in the early hours of the morning. When he woke up the next day, he ironically asked Marie if he had really slept all night without a tie.