Return to the Future: An Escape to Freedom

Return to the Future recounts Sigrid Undset’s dramatic exodus from her homeland during World War II. In 1940, the Nazi forces invade and occupy Norway, shattering the calm of the nation’s neutrality. With the western passage shut off, 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.