Tarjei Vesaas (1897-1970) novelist, poet, and playwright, is widely regarded as one of Norway's greatest writers of the twentieth century. Vesaas spent the majority of his life in Vinje, living on the farmhouse that had belonged to his family for three centuries. Despite his apparent isolation, Vesaas proved to be a prolific writer, publishing twenty-five novels and several volumes of poetry, short stories, and plays in his lifetime. He won several awards, including the Gyldendal's endowment in 1943, The Nordic Council's Literature prize in 1963 for his novel, The Ice Palace, and the Venice Prize in 1953 for The Winds. His novel The Birds was published by Archipelago in 2016. He was considered for the Nobel Prize three times. About the translator: Elizabeth Rokkan was a professor of English at the University of Bergen, Norway from 1964 to 1990. She has received critical acclaim for her translations of the work of Tarjei Vesaas and Cora Sandel, and was awarded the St. Olav Medal for her efforts to make Norwegian literature available to English speakers.
