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Alexander Kielland observed his fellow townsmen and women with a mercilessly keen eye, and wrote what he saw. His stories sold - the criticism made palatable by humour and light touch.

Writer, playwright, cocial critic, controversial native son -
Alexander Kielland is as relevant to Stavanger today as he was hundred years ago.

Kielland was born with a silver spoon in his mouth - which he enjoyed dipping into rich food and drink throughout his life. But he also owned a social conscience that would not be put down, and a fine sense of observation and irony. His statue stands at the marketplace and his likeness adorns the old Turnhallen next to Rogalands Theatre, which is currently playing a drama based on two of Kielland`s most popular novels. To sold out-houses.

Alexander Kielland was one of Norways four top writers in the late 1800s, the golden age of Norwegian arts. The others were Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Jonas Lie.

Kielland was a critic of officialdom, of capatalists, of power. The commond thread running through his writing is an exposure of hypocrisy and deceit, of the abuse of power. He knew what he was critising; it was his own social class.

Grandchild at Ledaal
Alexander was born in 1849, into the prominent Kielland family who had run the most prosperous merchant house in Stavanger for several generations. His grandfather was the cultivated, cosmopolitan Gabriel Schanche Kielland - the one who built Ledaal manor as a summer house for the family.

Alexander studied law in Kristiania (Oslo), without distinguishing himself. After he returned home he bought a brickworks and ran it with enusiasme, getting along well with his workers. But what he really wanted to do was to write "useful" poetry.

Instant success
He married a young woman who belonged to the pious Haugianer sect, Beate Ramsland. He read - Turgenev, Darwin, Dickens, Heine, H.C. Andersen among others - and he thought. He was not cut out of a brick factory owner, he decided.

He left his family behind and moved to Paris in 1879, to write full time. His first collection of short stories came out already that year, and another the next. He was an instant success.

He was mature, self-assured. His tone was polished and elegant, unpretensious yet refined. Kiellands stories were lighthearted and charming, but served with a firm hand and a goodly dose of malice. Sharp claws in velvet paws.

Class-ridden society
The short stories were followed by the novel Garman & Worse, and later by Skipper Worse. The main "character" in both novels was a commercial empire based to a large degree on that of his own family, and the class-ridden society of Stavanger itself in the past century. A lot of intrigue, romance, generational conflict, religious manipulation and personal tragedy.

Although his books sold well, Alexander Kielland was always in need of money. His tastes were extravagant and he had lived beyond the means ever since his stundent days. The matter of money was a constant preoccupation, but it apparently never occured to him to reduce his expenses. Overindulgense in good and drink led to poor health.

Bitterness
In 1885 his friends and fellow writers Jonas Lie and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnsen proposed that hte state should provide him with an authors grant to live on, but the Storting voted against this three times; Kielland was an enemy of honoured social values, it was said. The turbulence arising from the case shook Norways art world and embittered Kielland.

He stopped writing and briefly took a job as a newspaper editor. After this, he applied, and got, a civil administrators post in Stavanger, then i Molde.

Alexander Kielland died in 1906, aged 57. The house he lived in most of his life is now gone, and in its place is Kiellands Hage - the little park by Breiavannet that is to your left as you come up from the underpass from the market, on the Cathedral side.