In 1928 Knut Hamsun’s wife wrote a secret letter to a friend of hers: ‘he has not a single so-called friend . . . he cannot be bothered to write letters to friends, and . . . in the course of time all people have become a matter of indifference to him. This may be a fault, but it is simply how Hamsun is . . . His work is his only friend, his only love, and the rest of us just have to accept this.’