Thorkild Hansen's Prosessen mot Hamsun and the Documentarism Debate

Abstract

In the autumn of 1978, Thorkild Hansen’s Prosessen mot Hamsun generated a heated debate in Scandinavia. Hansen was the first to portray Knut Hamsun’s position during the second world war and the legal proceedings against him in the aftermath to such an extent, both when it comes to the use of sources and commercial ambitions. The portraying is in the genre documentarism, a hybrid of fiction and non-fiction, which at the time of publishing over a decade had held a prominent position in Scandinavia. The article gives a retrospect at a genre, a book, and the debate it caused by throwing light upon Hansen’s use of sources and his literary style. The conclusion asks whether Hansen had a plausible cause and lost it in the use of genre, and furthermore how genre debates still cause headlines.