On Overgrown Paths

On Overgrown Paths was written during Knut Hamsun's arrestment, hospitalization, and governmental denouncement for his activities as a Nazi sympathizer after World War II in Norway. Winner of the Nobel Prize and enormously beloved by his countrymen, Hamsun was now a traitor; accordingly his support of the Nazis led authorities to find him insane. But as this book shows, Hamsun was anything but mentally disturbed. Stubborn, even unrepentant, Hamsun nonetheless reveals a truly human being who deeply loved his country and was horribly misled by family and friends who served him with disinformation throughout the war and kept him, now nearly deaf, separated from anyone who might have shown him his errors. It is a sad and tragic book filled with the pained sorrow of an old man.