Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson won the second Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote the words Norwegians still sing as their national anthem, and quarrelled publicly with almost everyone — Ibsen included — about politics, faith and Norway's independence. Peasant tales made his name; he spent the rest of his life as the country's conscience, a novelist, playwright and agitator whom the state could neither silence nor ignore.