In Rosa the reader encounters the narrator, the twenty-two year-old Parelius, as he observes the often comic and near-tragic events surrounding the lovely young widow, Rosa, her previous husband Arentsen, and Hartvigsen, who desires to marry her and ultimately does. As this story unfolds, we gradually begin to see each of the figures, trapped in a small fishing village, hiding the truth: Hartvigsen has, in fact, lied to Rosa about her husband's death, and soon after her "dead" husband shows up in Sirilund.

And the young narrator, who himself has fallen under Rosa's charms, discovers - as in all of Hamsun's great fictions - that reality is far more complex than the everyday surface of life ever reveals. This new version of Hamsun's novel, by the Norwegian translator Sverre Lyngstad, makes one of the most engaging of his fictions available for a new generation of readers.