Johan Bojer (born Johan Kristoffer Hansen) was a popular Norwegian novelist and dramatist. He grew up as a foster child in a poor family living in Rissa near Trondheim, Norway. He learned of the realities of poverty early in life.Bojer principally wrote about the lives of poor farmers and fishermen, both in his native Norway and among the Norwegian immigrants in the United States. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times and is best remembered for his novel 'The Emigrants', a major novel dealing with the motivations and trials of Norwegians that emigrated to the plains of North Dakota.