A banner headline in the morning edition of the leading Oslo newspaper Aftenposten announced on 11 November 1926 that Olav Duun had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. The report aroused a great deal of national pride and an outpouring of praise for the author. Aftenposten, however, had been a bit precipitous: when the Swedish Academy made its final selection later that day, Duun lost by one vote to George Bernard Shaw. Duun himself, however, in his usual modest manner, declared laconically, according to a report in the newspaper Den 17de Mai on 20 November: "Nei, eg har aldri trudd paa sjøormen" (No, I never believed in the sea serpent). Duun never received the prize, even though he was nominated almost every year from 1924 to 1939 and even though there is no doubt among critics that he is the equal of the two Norwegian novelists who were awarded the...