Growth of the Soil follows Isak, a solitary man who settles on uncultivated land in the Norwegian wilderness and begins to clear and farm it. Over the years a wife, children, animals and neighbours arrive, and a small community takes shape. Hamsun sets the steady rhythm of work on the land against the restlessness of town life and the pull of money and fashion. The novel is a broad, unhurried celebration of rural labour and the cycle of generations, and it was cited when Hamsun won the Nobel Prize in 1920.