Sigrid Undset: A Study in Christian Realism

By A. H. Winsnes “The realism of Christianity is indomitable,” Sigrid Undset once wrote. The same could be said of her own realism. From incisive novels of modern life to richly detailed medieval sagas, Undset was peerless in her literary treatment of human life. Sigrid Undset: A Study in Christian Realism follows Undset from childhood to adulthood, from agnosticism to Catholicism, and from fledgling author to one of the twentieth century’s true visionaries—Catholic or otherwise. By marrying biography to literary appreciation, A. H. Winsnes shows how Undset could process her personal experiences and interests through her writing and thereby put them into “an eternal perspective, in relation to the divine order.” Connecting Undset to her peers in twentieth-century Catholic literature—including Chesterton and Greene, Bernanos and Mauriac—Winsnes underscores her ability to show, like they did, men and women as the “architects of their own misfortune,” but also to complement that vision wi