Return to the Future: An Escape to Freedom

In 1940, the Nazi forces invade and occupy Norway, shattering the calm of the nation’s neutrality. With the western passage shut off, Sigrid Undset escapes to the east—through anxious but helpful Sweden; on to Russia, dirty, disease-ridden, dysfunctional; then the natural beauty and cultural enigma of Japan, from where Undset and her son will depart by ship for a new future in the United States. Undset concludes with a measured reflection on the future of democracy and the possibility of a return to a virtuous and ordered society. A deeply personal work, Return to the Future combines trenchant social and political commentary with a powerfully moving account of the tragedies of World War II and the accompanying triumphs of the human spirit.

“The future of any society is determined by the life and prosperity of families within that society.” –Sigrid Undset

Sigrid Undset (1882–1949) was a Norwegian novelist and essayist and a convert to Catholicism. Her work is renowned for its realism and poignancy, and she is best known for her three-volume novel Kristin Lavransdatter. In 1928, Undset was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Paperback: 224 pages.