Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie was a Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright.
Background
He was born on November 6, 1833, in Hokksund, Norway.
He came from a family of jurists, but seems to have inherited most of his temperament from his gypsy-like mother.
In 1838, his father being appointed sheriff of Tromso, the family removed to that Arctic town. Here the future novelist enjoyed an untrammelled childhood among the shipping of the little Nordland capital, and gained acquaintance with the wild seafaring life which he was afterwards to describe.
Education
As a student at the University in Oslo he met Bjornstjerne, Bjornson, who inspired him to try his talents at literature. He got his law degree in 1858.
Career
He started his caree with a disastrous activity as a lawyer and timber speculator at Kongsvinger.
After his fortunes crashed he turned to letters, and his first novel, Den Fremsynte (1870; English translation The Visionary, 1894), still stands as one of his very best books, a tender, poetic study of a young mystic.
His next novels were stories of the sea and represent a gradual evolution toward a strictly realistic treatment.
His masterpieces in the realistic vein were Livsslaven (1883; One of Life's Slaves, 1895), a story of the environment that makes criminals, and Familien paa Gilje (1883; The Family at Gilje, 1920), depicting the joys and woes of a shabby but genteel family of the period of his childhood, told with great humor and pathos.
Lie continued to produce novels, dramas, and poems, turning to a symbolic form in the collection of short stories Trold (1891) ("Trolls").