HAUGE, ALFRED

born Oct. 17, 1915, Sjernary, Nor. died Oct. 31, 1986, Stavanger Norwegian novelist and poet, best known for his trilogy describing the life of a Norwegian immigrant to the United States in the 1820s: Hundevakt (1961; Midwatch), Landkjenning (1964; Land Sighting), and Ankerfeste (1965; Anchoring). The collected work was published as Cleng Peerson in 1968, the English translation (under the same title) in 1975. Many of Hauge's other books were concerned with religious and moral questions. Septemberfrost (1941; September Frost), his first novel, focuses on the miserable conditions in Norway before it achieved its independence in 1814. Ropet (1946; The Call) depicts the hostility of small-town pietism to art, a conflict that continued to inspire Hauge in several of his subsequent novels, all of which have small towns as their settings. Among them are ret har ingen vr (1948; The Year Has No Spring), Fossen og blet (1949; The Waterfall and the Bonfire), and Ingen kjenner dagen (1955; No One Knows the Day). Kvinner p galgebakken (1958; Women on Gallows Hill) is a psychological detective story in which questions of guilt and responsibility are paramount. Hauge's most important novel in a religious vein is the visionary Mysterium (1967; Mystery). In it, a man suffering from amnesia finds his way to a cloister where he is guided by dreams and visions and eventually healed by a perception of religious truth. Hauge used the same cloister milieu in six more works constituting the Utstein Monastery series. They are Legenden om Svein og Maria (1968; The Legend of Svein and Maria), the book of poems Det evige sekund (1970; The Eternal Second), Perelmorstrand (1974; Mother of Pearl Beach), Leviathan (1979), I Rinbrads land (1983; In Rinbrad's Country), and Serafen (1984; The Seraph). Hauge also wrote travel books, stories for children, and several volumes of autobiography.