_Hunger_ is Knut Hamsun's breakthrough novel about a young writer's efforts to practice his craft while battling extreme poverty and loneliness. The novel, written from the perspective of a struggling writer living in the city of Christiania, near Oslo, Norway, established Hamsun's reputation as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. Today, this pivotal and provocative work is acknowledged as a feat of powerful originality and a premier example of the psychological novel. Hamsun's stream-of-consciousness technique and use of interior monologue influenced writers such as James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, and Ernest Hemingway.