Sult is the Norwegian title of Hamsun's first major novel, known in English as Hunger. A young writer drifts through the streets of Kristiania, now Oslo, hoping to sell his articles and escape poverty. As food and money run out, his pride, imagination and pangs of conscience grow strange and fierce. The story is told from inside his mind, with sudden moods, small acts of generosity and self-defeating choices. It matters for its bold, close portrait of consciousness, which strongly influenced later modern fiction.