Knut Hamsun is one of Norway's Nobel Prize winning authors, and one of the most problematic and divisive figures in its literary history. He was an overt Nazi sympathizer and at the same time, is celebrated as being one of the founders of modern literature. Architect Steven Holl created a Hamsun Center in Hamsun's home town Presteid, hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle. It sounds like the Center hopes to invite and continue critque of his life and work, rather than celebrate him as a hero, and lets hope it is a step in the right direction for challenging and examining his life and his literature. There is an intriguing article in the Guardian about the Center here.
