Jens Bjrneboe

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Jens Bjrneboe

Born

9 October 1920
Kristiansand, Norway

Died

9 May 1976 (aged 55)

Veierland, Nttery, Norway

Occupation

Author, Waldorf school teacher

Nationality

Norwegian

Period

19511976

Children

Therese Bjrneboe

Relatives

Ejlert Bjerke (uncle)

Andr Bjerke (cousin)
Dag Solstad (son-in-law)
Vilhelm Tveteraas (father-in-law)
Signe Hofgaard (mother-in-law)
Sven Krup Bjrneboe (nephew)

Jens Ingvald Bjrneboe (9 October 1920 9 May 1976) was a Norwegian writer whose
work spanned a number of literary formats. He was also a painter and a Waldorf
school teacher. Bjrneboe was a harsh and eloquent critic of Norwegian society
and Western civilization on the whole. He led a turbulent life and his uncompromising

opinions cost him both an obscenity conviction as well as long periods of heavy
drinking and bouts of depression, which in the end led to his suicide.[1]
Jens Bjrneboe's first published work was Poems (Dikt) in 1951. He is widely considered
to be one of Norway's most important post-war authors. Bjrneboe identified himself,
among other self-definitions, as an anarcho-nihilist.[1]
During the Norwegian language struggle, Bjrneboe was a notable proponent of
the Riksml language, together with his equally famous cousin Andr Bjerke.[1]
Contents
[hide]

1Early life

2Literary career

3Death and legacy

4Bibliography
o

4.1Novels

4.2Plays

4.3Poem collections

4.4Essay collections

5References

6External links

Early life[edit]
Jens Bjrneboe was born in 1920, in Kristiansand to Ingvald and Anna Marie Bjrneboe.
He grew up in a wealthy family, his father a shipping magnate and a consul for Belgium.
The Bjrneboe family originally immigrated from Germany in the 17th century and later
adopted their Norwegian name. Coming from a long line of marine officers, Bjrneboe
also went to sea as a young man.[1]
Bjrneboe had a troubled childhood with sickness and depressions. He was bedbound
for several years following severe pneumonia. At thirteen he attempted suicide
by hanging himself. He began drinking when he was twelve, and he would often consume
large amounts of wine when his parents were away. It is also rumored that he drank his
father's aftershave on several occasions.[1]
In 1943 Bjrneboe fled to Sweden to avoid forced labor under the Nazi occupation.
During this exile, he met the German Jewish painter Lisel Funk, who later became his

first wife. Lisel Funk introduced him to many aspects of German culture, especially
German literature and the arts.[1]

Literary career[edit]
Bjrneboe's early work was poetry, and his first book was Poems (Dikt, 1951), consisting
mainly of deeply religious poetry.
Bjrneboe wrote a number of socially critical novels. Among those were Ere the Cock
Crows (Fr Hanen Galer, 1952), Jonas (1955) and The Evil Shepherd (Den Onde Hyrde,
1960). Ere the Cock Crows is a critique of what Bjrneboe saw as the harsh treatment,
after the Second World War, of people suspected of having associated in any way with
the Nazis (among them the Norwegian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Knut
Hamsun). Jonas deals with injustices and shortcomings of the school system and The
Evil Shepherd with the Norwegian prison system.
His most significant work is generally considered to be the trilogy The History of
Bestiality, consisting of the novels Moment of Freedom (Frihetens yeblikk,
1966), Powderhouse (Kruttrnet, 1969) and The Silence (Stillheten, 1973).
Bjrneboe also wrote a number of plays, among them The Bird Lovers (Fugleelskerne,
1966), Semmelweis (1968) and Amputation (Amputasjon, 1970), a collaboration
with Eugenio Barba and the Danish theatre ensemble Odin Teatret.
In 1967, he was convicted for publishing a novel deemed pornographic, Without a
Stitch (Uten en trd, 1966), which was confiscated and banned in Norway. The trial,
however, made the book a huge success in foreign editions, and Bjrneboe's financial
problems were (for a period) solved.
His last major work was the novel The Sharks (Haiene, 1974).

Death and legacy[edit]

After having struggled with depression and alcoholism for a long time, he
committed suicide by hanging on 9 May 1976.[2]
In his obituary in Aftenposten, Bjrneboe's life and legacy were described as follows:
For 25 years Jens Bjrneboe was a center of unrest in Norwegian cultural life:
Passionately concerned with contemporary problems in nearly all their aspects,
controversial and with the courage to be so, with a conscious will to carry things to
extremes. He was not to be pigeonholed. He dropped in on
many philosophical and political movements, but couldn't settle down in any of them. He
was a wanderer, always traveling on in search of what was for him the truthand he was
a free man, in that he always ruthlessly followed his innermost intentions. Perhaps he
could say, like Sren Kierkegaard, that "subjectivity is truth," for he knew no other guide
than his personal conviction and his own impulsesbut he related not merely to himself;
his deepest concern was society and the person in society. His subjective grasp always
involved the totality.[3]

Bibliography[edit]

Novels[edit]

Ere the Cock Crows (Fr hanen galer, 1952)

Jonas (1955)

Under a Harsher Sky (Under en hrdere himmel, 1957)

Winter in Bellapalma (Vinter i Bellapalma, 1958)

Little Boy Blue (Blmann, 1959)

The Evil Shepherd (Den onde hyrde, 1960)

The Dream and the Wheel (Drmmen og hjulet, 1964), about author Ragnhild
Jlsen

Moment of Freedom (Frihetens yeblikk, 1966) (translated by Esther Greenleaf

Mrer, Norvik Press / Dufour, 1999)

Without a Stitch (Uten en trd, 1966)

Powderhouse (Kruttrnet, 1969) (translated by Esther Greenleaf Mrer, Norvik
Press / Dufour, 2000)
Duke Hans (Hertug Hans, 1972)

The Silence (Stillheten, 1973) (translated by Esther Greenleaf Mrer, Norvik

Press / Dufour, 2000)

The Sharks (Haiene, 1974) (translated by Esther Greenleaf Mrer, Norvik Press /
Dufour, 1992)

Plays[edit]

Many Happy Returns (Til lykke med dagen, 1965)

The Bird Lovers (Fugleelskerne, 1966) (translated by Frederick Wasser,

Sun&Moon Press, 1994)

Semmelweis (1968) (translated by Joe Martin, Sun&Moon Press, 1999)

Amputation (Amputasjon, 1970). Reprinted as: Amputations: Texts for an

Extraordinary Spectacle (translated by Solrun Hoaas & Esther Greenleaf
Mrer, Xenos Books, 2002)
The Torgersen Case (Tilfellet Torgersen, 1972)

Blue Jeans (Dongery, 1976)

Poem collections[edit]

Poems (Dikt, 1951)

Ariadne (1953)

The Great City (Den store by, 1958)

Happy Birthday (Til lykke med dagen, 1965)

Essay collections[edit]

Norway, my Norway (Norge, mitt Norge, 1968)

We Who Loved America (Vi som elsket Amerika, 1970)

Police and Anarchy (Politi og anarki, 1972)

References[edit]
1.

^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Wandrup, Fredrik (1984). "Jens Bjrneboe: Mannen, myten

og kunsten" (Norwegian). Gyldendal. Retrieved 30 August 2009.

2.

Jump up^ Cody, Gabrielle H.; Sprinchorn, Evert (2007). "Bjrneboe, Jens
Ingvald (1920-1976)". The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. 1. Columbia
University Press. pp. 161162. ISBN 978-0-231-14422-3. Retrieved 28 August 2009.

3.

Jump up^ Obituary, Aftenposten, 11 May 1976