--- product_id: 2196631 title: "Hunger (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)" price: "COP 97293" currency: COP in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.co/products/2196631-hunger-penguin-twentieth-century-classics store_origin: CO region: Colombia --- # Global Perspectives Classic Literature Timeless Themes Hunger (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) **Price:** COP 97293 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 📖 Unlock the Classics: Where Every Page is a Portal to the Past! ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Hunger (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) - **How much does it cost?** COP 97293 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co](https://www.desertcart.co/products/2196631-hunger-penguin-twentieth-century-classics) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **A Collector's Dream:** Perfectly bound and designed to enhance any bookshelf aesthetic. - • **Dive into Timelessness:** Experience the essence of classic literature that transcends generations. - • **Join the Literary Elite:** Be part of a community that values the power of words and ideas. - • **Curated for the Connoisseur:** Each edition is meticulously crafted for the discerning reader. - • **Global Voices, Local Impact:** Explore diverse narratives that resonate with today's societal themes. ## Overview Hunger, part of the Penguin Twentieth Century Classics series, offers readers a profound exploration of human experience through the lens of classic literature, making it an essential addition to any literary collection. ## Description A modernist masterpiece: the Nobel Prize winner’s first and most important novel First published in Norway in 1890, Hunger probes the depths of consciousness with frightening and gripping power. Contemptuous of novels of his time and what he saw as their stereotypical plots and empty characters, Knut Hamsun embarked on “an attempt to describe the strange, peculiar life of the mind, the mysteries of the nerves in a starving body.” Like the works of Dostoyevsky, it marks an extraordinary break with Western literary and humanistic traditions. Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Review: A metaphor for essential deprivation - I am drawn to novels of the Dostoevskian kind, which delve into the psychology of their characters. When I happened to learn that Knut Hamsun was a pioneer of this style, and a Nobel Prize winner to boot, I got hold of this famous (though previously I'd never hard of it!) novel of his. It indeed fit the bill. So much so, in fact, that I soon found it practically unbearable. The depiction of what it is like to be starving is so intense that I had to ask myself why I was submitting myself to it. Normally one reads for pleasure or enlightenment. There was no pleasure here, and I already knew that starvation is no fun, right? But then something happened, that's to say, in my own consciousness. I made a breakthrough of insight: The literal starvation in this book could be reckoned as a metaphor. While the vivid depiction of literal hunger could indeed serve a useful purpose in opening up our hearts to the many real and not just fictional persons in the world who are so impoverished that they cannot obtain food or shelter, being able to identify with hunger as a metaphor for whatever one needs as something essential, whether nutritionally or emotionally, but simply cannot obtain no matter how hard one tries, or at least without fatally compromising one's dignity or integrity, and then induces every sort of mental and behavioral aberration as a result, enables one to experience the book as a compelling read that transcends mere description. It was in this way that I was then eager to keep reading, and was amazed at how the author was able to hold my keen attention even though the subject remained pretty much monotonic throughout. A masterpiece by a brilliant writer. Review: A world of woe, or whim? - Soren Kierkegaard once wrote: “If I were a pagan, I would say that an ironical deity gave man the gift of speech so that he may be entertained by their self-deceit.” In “Hunger” the author, Knut Hamsun, demonstrates the inconsistency of human reason by showing how easily one’s stream of consciousness slips its banks on an impulse, particularly in those enfeebled by isolation and malnutrition. Surprisingly in this short novel, the mental meandering of the protagonist entertains the reader, perhaps because it recapitulates the cerebral gymnastics many readers have experienced in response to the vicissitudes of daily existence. Despite the travails of the main character, his endless generation of possible solutions may not be in vain as he struggles to find a way out his self-imposed labyrinth of conflicting misdirection. Recommended for unhurried readers interested in introspection's pitfalls and potential. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #72,987 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #11 in Scandinavian Literature (Books) #2,115 in Classic Literature & Fiction #2,311 in Psychological Fiction (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.3 out of 5 stars 702 Reviews | ## Images ![Hunger (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81ajJukkqNL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A metaphor for essential deprivation *by J***S on December 11, 2024* I am drawn to novels of the Dostoevskian kind, which delve into the psychology of their characters. When I happened to learn that Knut Hamsun was a pioneer of this style, and a Nobel Prize winner to boot, I got hold of this famous (though previously I'd never hard of it!) novel of his. It indeed fit the bill. So much so, in fact, that I soon found it practically unbearable. The depiction of what it is like to be starving is so intense that I had to ask myself why I was submitting myself to it. Normally one reads for pleasure or enlightenment. There was no pleasure here, and I already knew that starvation is no fun, right? But then something happened, that's to say, in my own consciousness. I made a breakthrough of insight: The literal starvation in this book could be reckoned as a metaphor. While the vivid depiction of literal hunger could indeed serve a useful purpose in opening up our hearts to the many real and not just fictional persons in the world who are so impoverished that they cannot obtain food or shelter, being able to identify with hunger as a metaphor for whatever one needs as something essential, whether nutritionally or emotionally, but simply cannot obtain no matter how hard one tries, or at least without fatally compromising one's dignity or integrity, and then induces every sort of mental and behavioral aberration as a result, enables one to experience the book as a compelling read that transcends mere description. It was in this way that I was then eager to keep reading, and was amazed at how the author was able to hold my keen attention even though the subject remained pretty much monotonic throughout. A masterpiece by a brilliant writer. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A world of woe, or whim? *by F***R on September 18, 2024* Soren Kierkegaard once wrote: “If I were a pagan, I would say that an ironical deity gave man the gift of speech so that he may be entertained by their self-deceit.” In “Hunger” the author, Knut Hamsun, demonstrates the inconsistency of human reason by showing how easily one’s stream of consciousness slips its banks on an impulse, particularly in those enfeebled by isolation and malnutrition. Surprisingly in this short novel, the mental meandering of the protagonist entertains the reader, perhaps because it recapitulates the cerebral gymnastics many readers have experienced in response to the vicissitudes of daily existence. Despite the travails of the main character, his endless generation of possible solutions may not be in vain as he struggles to find a way out his self-imposed labyrinth of conflicting misdirection. Recommended for unhurried readers interested in introspection's pitfalls and potential. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Insatiable *by S***N on April 5, 2019* A great psychological novel by an author new to me. Thank goodness for literature in translation. The author had an extremely difficult life as a young man, even by Norwegian emigre standards in the Midwest. The novel is set in an insignificant little town, in which the protagonist goes mad, inflating his worth as a writer even as the world has no use for his thoughts. The biggest issue is how to get a little food to sustain him and how to find a decent place to live. He generally fails at both, taking advantage of everyone he knows, while resenting their inattention to his greatness. Needless to say, his hunger is multidimensional. The book is reminiscent of Dostoevsky, but without the gore and murder. The protagonist has violence in him, but he directs it at his own destruction. Crazy people, it turns out, lack perspective. ## Frequently Bought Together - Hunger - The Trial (Penguin Modern Classics) Franz Kafka --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co/products/2196631-hunger-penguin-twentieth-century-classics](https://www.desertcart.co/products/2196631-hunger-penguin-twentieth-century-classics) --- *Product available on Desertcart Colombia* *Store origin: CO* *Last updated: 2026-09-25*