Alexander Lange Kielland was one of the most famous Norwegian realistic writers of the 19th century.
Background
Kielland was born on February 18, 1849 in Stavanger, Norway, the son of consul Jens Zetlitz Kielland and great-grandson of Gabriel Schanche Kielland (1760–1821). Kielland was the younger brother of Norwegian landscape painter Kitty Lange Kielland.
Education
Kielland acquired a law degree that he never used.
Career
Kielland ran a brick factory for nine years. His experiences during these years and the new realistic manifestoes of Georg Brandes and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson led him to take up writing in 1878, simultaneously with a visit to the Paris Exposition. His volume of short stories called Novelletter (1879) burst like a meteor on the literary scene, with their deft perfection of style, rapierlike wit, and sharp portrayal of character. He followed them with a series of novels, the best being those that describe the history of an aristocratic family much like his own, Garman og Worse (1880) and Skipper Worse (1882). His art reminds one of such French writers as Alphonse Daudet and Gustave Flaubert, with touches of Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen. He always had a definite purpose in his writing, an indignation at social injustice and a stout defense of the oppressed which was surprising enough in one of his antecedents. In all his agitation, however, he still remained gentlemanly, with veneration for the cultural traditions of his family. In his later novels he turned his satiric shafts at representatives of official life, especially the clergy, the bureaucrats, and the schoolmen, who revenged themselves by refusing him an author's stipend in 1885. In 1891 he ceased writing as suddenly as he had started, was appointed mayor of his native town, was made district governor of Romsdal in 1902, and died on April 6, 1906.