"Johanne Lien has grown up living a simple life with her family in Asgardstrand, Norway, posing for visiting artists who come to the town for the beautiful summer weather. Her unassuming lifestyle takes a dramatic turn when Tullik, the beautiful younger daughter of a wealthy local family, befriends Johanne in order to get close to the controversial artist Edvard Munch. As Johanne is drawn ever deeper into the raw emotion of Munch's paintings, so too...

The cycle follows the life of Kristin Lavransdatter, a fictitious Norwegian woman living in the 14th century. Kristin grows up in Sil in Gudbrandsdalen, the daughter of a well-respected and affluent farmer. She experiences a number of conflicts in her relationships with her parents, and her husband Erlend, in medieval Norway. She finds comfort and conciliation in her Catholic faith.

Initially rejected by the author's scandalized publisher, Constance Ring is now considered a classic of Scandinavian-and world-literature, a passionate condemnation of marriage and moral hypocrisy that has drawn comparisons to Madame Bovary and The Awakening. The story of a naive young woman who sets out to divorce her loving but adulterous husband, Constance Ring is an intimate portrayal of a vibrant woman's refusal to yield to the forces that constrict...