Paperback and limited-run hardcover editions available now!
O. E. Rølvaag’s Giants in the Earth is an epic story of resilience. It follows Norwegian immigrants Per Hansa and Beret as they pursue dreams of homesteading on the untamed Dakota prairie, a land of stark beauty, endless seas of grass, and unforgiving winters, requiring relentless struggle to sustain a living from the earth. As they build their life together, their love is tested by isolation, hardship, and yearning for connection. Will their spirits—like the giants of old—be strong enough to unleash the land’s potential without destroying their unique Norwegian way of life and build a legacy for future generations? Giants in the Earth explores themes of love, loss, faith, cultural identity, and the enduring human spirit in the face of overwhelming odds. Rediscover this overlooked classic of American literature.
This reprinting of Giants in the Earth, featuring an updated introduction and revised annotations by Allan C. Carlson, offers the modern reader thoughtful insights into Rølvaag’s beliefs and hopes about the immigrant experience in America—Norwegian or otherwise.
" . . . the big recent news from thataway [the Dakotas] is the South Dakota Historical Society Press’s beautiful reissue of Ole Rølvaag’s Giants in the Earth (1927), one of the handful of epics that can plausibly lay claim to the title of The Great American Novel, alongside Moby Dick, The Grapes of Wrath, and Frank Norris’s The Octopus. It is at least The Great American Novel of the immigrant experience—marked by crushing loneliness, dolorous displacement, and extraordinary courage and hardihood—and in an act of pan-Scandinavian comity the Swedish-American Allan Carlson has annotated and introduced this saga of Norwegian pioneers in the Dakota Territory." — Bill Kauffman, The American Conservative (Feb. 2025 issue)
