Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie (Perennial Classics)

"The fullest, finest, and most powerful novel that has been written about pioneer life in America."--The Nation

O. E. Rolvaag's classic novel of a family of Norwegian settlers in the Great Plains--a vivid and intimate portrait of the nineteenth-century immigrant experience and the exploration of America

Based in part on Ole Edvart R�lvaag's own recollections as well of those of his wife's family who were immigrant homesteaders, Giants in the Earth is the riveting story of a Norwegian family forging a new life amid the harsh, desolate climate of the Dakota Territory. R�lvaag recounts the hardships they endured on the high prairie--blizzards, locust storms, poverty, hunger, loneliness, homesickness, and culture shock--as well as their simple joys, culminating in a magnificent epic that bridges Norwegian culture and the history of the American dream.

"A moving narrative of pioneer hardship and heroism. . . . The background of the boundless Dakota prairie, with its mysterious distances and its capacity for evil, is painted with alternating beauty and grimness." --The Atlantic