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 Norway and 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 work dealing with the motivations and trials of Norwegians who emigrated to the plains of North Dakota.