$Unique_ID{bob00176} $Pretitle{} $Title{Denmark Danish Literature in the Seventies} $Subtitle{} $Author{Henning Dehn Nielsen} $Affiliation{Ministry of Foreign Affairs} $Subject{press danish london new blixen conn ill karen literature willimantic} $Date{1990} $Log{} Title: Denmark Book: Facts about Denmark Author: Henning Dehn Nielsen Affiliation: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Date: 1990 Danish Literature in the Seventies During the so-called youth revolution powerful influences reiterated the demand for both creative writing and criticism to be informed with far greater solidarity than had hitherto marked literary writing. A number of new themes emerged and made themselves heard in social groups and through ordinary problems that had for long lain fallow. Various working-class writers who described childhood and working life among the less privileged, to a certain extent in the tradition of Martin Andersen Nex|o, appeared or reappeared. Among them may be mentioned Ditte Cederstrand (b. 1915), Age Hansen-Folehaven (1913-79) and John Nehm (b. 1934). Two of Nehm's books were made into the fine film Johnny Larsen. ANDERS BODELSEN. Anders Bodelsen practises his craft in a highly professional manner. Insignificant people who get themselves caught up in events of vast import that they are unable to comprehend and that threaten to submerge them are a recurring theme in his writing. The film and entertainment industries have recognised the hard-wearing popular elements in his work and contributed to his considerable marketability at home and abroad. But amidst the international whirl of complications and panic he holds fast to the small secret awareness of what we think of as the normal human being's shamelessly uneventful everyday life. We can understand their, and Bodelsens, hankering for the thrilling adventure. HENRIK STANGERUP. The new media world of television, daily and weekly press and so on can accommodate quite as comprehensive a cast of characters as the most capacious novel. Among the many authors who have wished to figure in the endless work of public fiction is Henrik Stangerup. As an individual with his own personal crises and ambitions he has made himself available to the media with great frankness. And as a filmmaker, critic and novelist he has given good reasons for the general public to take interest in him. His most recent novels, which feature searching character studies of eminent Danish personalities would seem to be an attempt to find an identity based on something weightier than his role as a public figure. TOVE DITLEVSEN. Tove Ditlevsen was a strong and afflicted woman. Although she herself acted as adviser to many other women her writings reveal desperate bewilderment. She did not formally attach herself to any organised school of womens politics, but her artistically powerful descriptions of womens experience and her talents as a popular story-teller resulted in her playing an important part in the establishment of a new womens consciousness. Tove Ditlevsens contribution was rather to depict the agonies than to seek the means of alleviating them. KIRSTEN THORUP. Developing ones true self has been a theme both in Kirsten Thorups life and her writing. She did not like several of her contemporaries enjoy a striking and early success, but she has developed through a steadily increasing artistic penetration of her personal background of experience. Gradually an idiosyncratic poet has turned into a prolific novelist, who has now completed the most sweeping fiction-project of this decade, a vast depiction of Danish life right up to the present time. DORRIT WILLUMSEN. The fear of being changed into an empty and beautiful mask is a dominant theme in Dorrit Willumsens writing. Her illusionless knowledge of modern life with its lack of communication and inhibited contact enables her to describe sex-role problems with outstanding clarity. But her sceptical nature and her widely-varied modernistic style have separated her from the more programmatic womens movement. DEA TRIER MORCH. As a lithographic artist Dea Trier Morch has concentrated on simplified form in drawing figures, and her sure talent to characterise with the minimum of strokes has won her great popular acclaim. The same may be said of her work as a writer. Sometimes her style comes close to being too idyllically simple, but in her best moments she can capture people in touching everyday situations. As an artist she has succeeded in reaching sections of readership not normally drawn to works of literature. POUL VAD. The play of irony, a sceptical and passionate counter-composition of myth characterises Poul Vads writing, which is at one and the same time disciplined and fantastic. As a trained art historian he has a very precise sense of the visual world, with much feeling for landscapes, wide expanses, long distances. The homelessness of the sceptic in an ideological world is one of his main themes, but also a conviction that there is a destiny for the sceptic as well as for the believer. There are true wizards powers in him, despite the fact that he distrusts wizards. SUZANNE BROGGER. Suzanne Brogger derives some of her subjects matter and her form of provocative femininity from Karen Blixen. But her methods of using these means are far more modern and direct. There is plenty of fresh air around her personality and her views. Her frank and light-hearted attitude to the pleasures of the erotic life links her with writers such as Henry Miller and Anays Nin. In contrast, her reputation among neo-puritans and other earnest women is dubious. She demonstrated a startling side of her talent in her poem of requiem, Tone, and continues to astonish the general public with her dramatic metamorphoses. A type of documentary literature that includes autobiography, the critical scientific report and the political manifesto, emerged through influence from Sweden in particular, for instance, Sara Lidman. Without any great literary ambition a number of writers describe their own everyday problems in workplace, work disputes or arising in the domestic life that shift work and the necessity for both partners to work have made so full of conflict. The historical documentary book has seen development as well. The books of Thorkild Hansen (b. 1927) about journeys of discovery Det lykkelige Arabien (Arabia Felix), 1962, Jens Munk (North West to Hudson Bay. The life and Times of Jens Munk), 1965 and the Danish slave trade, in three volumes, 1967-70, have reached the status of popular reading, while with his comprehensive biography of Knut Hamsun, 1979, he provoked a very heated Danish-Norwegian debate on the legal proceedings that followed the German occupation. The success of the documentary genre during the seventies is symptomatic of the great extent to which the presentation of problems and political themes dominated literature in this decade. The artistic form and the fictional generalisation of problems faded into the background. The neo-realistic novel produced by such writers as Anders Bodelsen (b. 1937), Henrik Stangerup (b. 1937) and Christian Kampmann (b. 1939) made such great demands on the author's knowledge of the milieu he was describing that in fact it was only possible for him to write about his own place of origin. Bodelsen moved on to the safer sphere of the criminal novel, Toenk pa et tal (The Silent Partner), 1968 (filmed), with the sequel Haendeligt uheld (Hit and run, run, run), 1968. Stangerup changed direction to autobiography, Fjenden i forkobet (The Enemy beforehand), 1978, and later authored a huge, artistically adapted novel about a Danish natural scientist, Vejen til Lagoa Santa (The Road to Lagoa Santa), 1981. In the novel Det er svaert at do i Dieppe (It's hard to die in Dieppe), 1985, Stangerup portrayed a talented and desperate soul, the 19th century Danish critic P.L. Moller. Kampmann's massive four-volume work on the Gregersen family, Visse hensyn (Certain Considerations), 1973, Faste forhold (Firm Relationships), Rene linjer (Clear Lines), 1975, og Andre mader (Other Ways), 1975, is the most significant achievement in the sphere of neo-realism. But the hidden autobiographical element in this form of realism was revealed when Kampmann described under his own name his acquaintance with homosexual circles in Copenhagen. This was his contribution to the breaking of taboos and secretiveness carried out by several other authors at this time. Confessional literature and the roman @a clef are the logical consequence of this type of neo-realism. For some years the daily newspapers, chiefly Politiken, but also the evening papers and weeklies, became almost literary media, in which a series of authors and personalities in the cultural sphere turned as it were into living characters from novels by laying bare their own problematic and interesting histories. It was during these years that the gifted lyric poet and writer about children and women, Tove Ditlevsen (1918-76) wrote her memoirs, Gift, a Danish word that means both married and poison, 1971, and wrote her last novels mercilessly close to her own and others actual experiences, Vilhelms vaerelse (Vilhelms Room), 1975. The wife and husband, Herdis (b. 1936) and Johannes Mollehave (b. 1937), introduced the debate on cohabitation and on alcoholism. These books of fiction prolonged the more or less scandalous glimpses into the lives of these people. The breaking of taboos on the one hand had obvious sensational aspects, on the other hand it was often motivated by the necessity to show people how much their socalled private problems resembled those of others. The necessity for recognition is probably one of the main causes of the flood of theoretical and creative writing about women that appeared during the seventies. Various forms of women's experience have been given literary expression, for instance by Jytte Borberg (b. 1917) and Martha Christensen (b. 1926). It is a wide spectrum, ranging from the lyric poet Vita Andersen (b. 1944), whose enormously popular poems, Tryghedsnarkomaner (Security Addicts), 1977, do not admit of much possibility of escape from her somewhat fashionable melancholy, via a number of energetic and inventive sex role critics to Herdis Mollehaves equally popular novels, Le, 1978, the Lene, 1980, that in an artistically imperfect form set the tone for sex role themes and characterised the idea of a knotty man. The capacity of these books to arouse attention must have surprised more people than the author herself. More artistic talent and variation of genre can be seen in writers such as Charlotte Strandgaard (b. 1943) and Kirsten Thorup (b. 1942). The latter's long novel-cycle about Jonna, the leading character, employs painstaking and imaginative realism to create a life story that expands into a history of Denmark seen through one person's temperament. The series completed with the two-volume Himmel og helvede (Heaven and hell), 1982, and Den yderste graense (The furthest frontier), 1987, has attracted a huge readership. Dorrit Willumsen (b. 1940), writes on erotic conflict in a sharply chiselled style that utilises various devices of modernistic narrative art, for instance in the novel Manden som paskud (The Man as Excuse), 1980. Her interest in role problems led her to an intensely fascinating subject in her novel Marie, a fictional account of the life of Madamme Tussaud, published in 1983. The graphic artist Dea Trier Morch (b. 1941), whose clearcut woodcuts at one time decorated the walls and periodicals of the Danish leftwing, has also illustrated her own books, among which in particular Vinterborn (Winther's child), 1976, the story of a group of women in a maternity ward, has been widely read and also made into a film. Less well received by the feminists is Suzanne Brogger (b. 1944) whose upholding of her personal and erotic freedom has conveyed a slightly ironical and teasing attitude towards her more serious sisters, Cr*eme fra;iche 1978. Suzanne Brogger's own struggle to find a road into life-often combined with religious and esoteric experiences- is reflected in her most recent publications, for instance, Den pebrede susen (The peppery soughing), 1986. Eventually the sex role discussions spawned a series of writings about male problems. Notable among them is Hans-Jorgen Nielsens semi-autobiographical novel Fodboldenglen (The Soccer Angel), 1979, which made the popular hitlist not least because of its analysis of the atmosphere of a Danish sporting milieu. The poetry written during this decade is also characterised by its preoccupation with problems, in particular sex roles, jealousy, new sexual practices, etc. The poems are without art, often practically unrhythmical, and in many cases can only claim to be poetry by being printed in the form of lines, which has earned them the slightly derogatory definition of broken prose. The eighties Many of the new writers appearing during this decade have turned away, at times forcefully, from the ideological and political themes of preceding years. It has rightly been pointed out that the committed literature of the '70s often paid for its comparatively effective hitting power with a marked failure to meet the demands of artistic quality. In the generation clash of about 1980 a group of talented young lyric poets singled themselves out by returning to the sources of early modernism and symbolism in the European-American tradition, and often combined this with lively inspiration from beat and punk musicians like Bob Dylan and David Bowie. The main themes of poetry were no longer sociological analysis and criticism. At its hub was now an idologically confused, nervously sensitive self which felt overwhelmed by the chaotic mass of impression flooding into it from modern civilisation and the world of the media. The resulting disorientation, disgust and protest took many forms, but all were strongly individual, ecstatic and pathetic, often with a painful longing for love and fellow-feeling as the keynote. With his aggressive precision and a talent that developed early, Michael Strunge (1958-86) came to be the figurehead of a new generation of poets. He was every sense of the word a bundle of nerves. If Michael Strunge's poetry is concentrated on a tactile angst, there is a novelist's appetite for life in the poet F.P. Jac (b. 1955) who has experimented with a rattling and highly inventive style, mannered at its worst and linguistically creative at its best. There is something robust in his very despair. The conflict between concision and voluminousness characterises the fluctuations of style in the seven-volume cycle of poem-sequences of Bo Green Jensen (b. 1955) called Rosens veje (Road of the Rose), completed 1986. It is a delicately sensitive but courageous poet who is the channel for these great outpourings of reality. His older colleague Klaus Hoeck (b. 1935), who found his full voice only in the '80s, solves the problems of reality's unending mass of material by working with complex mathematical paradigms to organise his collections of poems. The longest of them is Hjem (Home), 1985, which fills 608 pages. MICHAEL STRUNGE. The myth of a youthful death was realised with uncompromising tragedy in Michael Strunge's short life. His nature was as explosive and highly-strung as his poems, a series of winged poetry collections full of the most intense sensory and linguistic power. His panic clear-sightedness brought him into conflict with any form of normal conventional life. As an artist he experimented recklessly by subjecting himself to the most extreme experiences which he then set alight with a kind of nuclear fission that burned itself out in a gigantic discharge of illuminating power. Among the women poets a generation has emerged which has concentrated on feminine experience without giving it such a programmatic form as was the case in the previous decade. In this respect Inger Christensen's writing had been the dominating influence. In particular Pia Tafdrup (b. 1952), in a series of compact collections of poems, has demonstrated an aptitude for the concise and beautifully intensified poem. But there are number of strong and individual talents among the youngest women writers, including Nina Malinowski (b. 1931) and Juliane Preisler (b. 1959). The author Soren Ulrik Thomsen (b. 1956), who has published two substantial collections of poems, in his poetical manifesto Mit lys broender (My light burns), 1985, carried on a tradition of reflections on artistic practice adopted by the earlier writers Poul la Cour, Thorkild Bjornvig and Per Hojholt. As a contrast to the extreme psychologically orientated and introverted neo-realism and confessional writing, new forms of realism have been developing in prose fiction. One of the most interesting is what can be called ecological realism. In Vagn Lundbye's novels it appears as an engagement with nature and the cosmos as the source to which all animal and human life is bound, particularly in his reinterpretation of the biblical story of Jonas Tilbage til Anholt (Back to Anholt), 1978, Hvalfisken (The Whale), 1980, and Den store by, (The Big Town), 1982. Lundbye and also Ib Michael (b. 1943), show a deep interest in peoples who treat the natural world with more sensitivity and insight than does our western industrial society: Lapps, Esquimos and American Indians. A new interpretation of myths and religious belief is under way, for example in Lundbye's Alvidende fortoellinger (Omniscient tales), 1986. PIA TAFDRUP. When people often find modern poetry hard to understand it is because a number of young poets like Pia Tafdrup have widened their conception of the nature of language. Her poetry engages in a continous conversation between body and consciousness, her organs and her sex take up the power of speech, often with a frankness previously unheard in Danish erotic poetry. But her poetic talent is keen and intellectual, her poems spare and finely honed. A poet with her own unmistakable voice. Of course there is no lack of more or less realistic novels. The most successful exponent of the genre is Kirsten Thorup, but Jorgen Chr. Hansen's trilogy on the world of childhood experience Guldsmeden (The Goldsmith), 1981, Hermelinen (The stoat), 1982, and Knoeleren (The praying mantis), should be noted. Martin og Victoria (Martin and Victoria), 1985 and Victorias ar (Victoria's years), 1986, by Klaus Lynggard (b, 1956) will probably prove to be the epic of youth in this generation, while in his novel Som landet ligger (As the land lies), 1983, Arthur Krasilnikoff (b. 1941) has used the recollections of a woman cancer sufferer to paint a distinctive picture of the Denmark of an older generation. An idiosyncratic blend of fantasy and realism characterises the work of Hanne Marie Svendsen (b. 1933) who enjoyed particular succes with her novel Guldkuglen (The golden globe), 1985. I the sphere of prose fiction a protest against slightly provincial realism lacking in perspective has resulted in the development of what has been termed grotesque realism. Here Svend Aage Madsen and Villy Sorensen have both in their different ways been leading lights, but various other very individual talents have been assigned to this category. The gift for a complex plot is evident, for instance, in Ib Michael's novels Kejserfortoellingen (The Emperor Story), 1981, and Troubadurens laerling (The troubadour's apprentice), 1984. Poul Vad (b, 1927) has undergone a development taking him from a powerful type of fiction writing inspired by amongst others Flaubert, (the outstanding novel Rubruk, 1972) to the complex construction of the novel Kattens anatomi (The Anatomy of the cat), 1978, some of whose forebears seem to have been Rabelais and E. T. A. Hoffmann. The book displays a wide range of humour, sarcasm, desperation, fantastic dreams and modern (anti) mythologising. Jens Smoerup Sorensen (b. 1946), shows an equally wide compass, ranging from the novel of linguistic experimentation followed by exact realism and on to freer fantasy, as for instance in Mit danske kod (My Danish Flesh), 1980. Most surprising and yet perfectly consistent is Per Hojholt's emergence as a writer of fantasy. In a tradition ranging from Poe and Borges he is engaged in developing a unique type of narrative art in which souvereign humour blends with something that maintains the most delicate balance between madness and wisdom. To date he has published two small masterpieces in this vein Lynmuseet og andre blindgyder (The lightning museum and other blind alleys), 1982, and Salamanderen og andre blindgyder (The Salamander and other blind alleys), 1986, but more will doubtless appear from his brilliantly concocted and unpredictable witches' brew. Erik A. Nielsen BIBLIOGRAPHY Poul Borum: Danish Literature, Copenhagen, 1979. Torben Brostrom and Mette Winge (eds.): Danske digtere i det 20. arhundrede (Danish Literature of the 20th Century. In Danish only), 3-5, 3rd edition, Copenhagen, 1981-82. Fr*ed*eric Durand: Histoire de la litt*erature danoise, Paris, 1967. Wilhelm Friese: Nordische Literaturen im 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, 1971. Aage Henriksen (ed.): Ideologihistorie (History of Ideologies. In Danish only), 3-4, Copenhagen, 1975-76. Niels Chr. Lindtner: Danske og udenlandske forfattere efter 1914 (Danish and Other Writers after 1914. In Danish only), Copenhagen, 1977. P.M. Mitchell: A History of Danish literature, New York, 1971. Sven H. Rossel: A History of Scandinavian Literature 1870-1980, Minneapolis, 1982. Sven H. Rossel: Skandinavische Literatur 1870-1970, Stuttgart, 1973. Werner and Hanne Marie Svendsen: Geschichte der danischen Literatur, Neumunster, 1964. P.H. Traustedt (ed.): Dansk Litteraturhistorie (History of Danish Literature. In Danish only), 5-6, 2nd enlarged edition, 1977. Dansk litteraturhistorie (History of Danish Literature. In Danish only), 8-9, Copenhagen, 1983. Erik A. Nielsen Translations Not all books referred to in the article have been translated into English. The following is a complete survey of the Royal Library's stock of English translations of works by the authors mentioned in the article. Bibliography Danish Literature in English Translation. A Bibliography. Copenhagen. The Royal Library. 1981. 25 p., ill. Schroeder, Carol L.: A Bibliography of Danish Literature in English Translation 1950-1980. Copenhagen. Det danske Selskab. 1982. 197 p. Anthologies Anthology of Danish Literature. Ed. by F.J. Billeskov Jansen and P.M. Mitchell. Carbondale, III. Southern Illinois University Press. 1971. 606 p. Contemporary Danish Plays. Reprint of 1955 ed. Freeport, N.Y. Books for Libraries Press. 1970. 556 p. Contemporary Danish Poetry. Boston, Mass. Twayne. 1977. 343 p. Contemporary Danish Prose. Reprint of 1958 ed. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press. 1974. 375 p. The Devil's Instrument and other Danish Stories. Ed. by Sven Holm. London. Owen. 1971. 266 p. Five Danish Poets. Benny Andersen, Poul Borum, Inger Christensen, Ivan Malinowski, Henrik Nordbrandt. Loanhead. Macdonald. 1973. 56 p. (Lines review. 46). Modern Nordic Plays. Denmark. H.C. Branner: Thermopylae, Ernst Bruun Olsen: The Bookseller cannot sleep. Klaus Rifbjerg: Developments. Peter Ronild: Boxing for One. Oslo. Universitetsforlaget. 1974. 449 p. No Man's Land. An Anthology of Modern Danish Women's Literature. Ed. by Annegret Heitmann. Norwich. Norvik Press. 1987. 211 p. Seventeen Danish Poets. A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Danish Poetry. Ed. by Niels Ingwersen. Lincoln, Neb. Windflower Press. 1981. 164 p. Individual authors Andersen, Benny: The Pillows. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Pres. 1983. 182 p. Andersen, Benny: Selected Poems. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press. 1975. 141 p. Andersen, Benny: Selected Stories. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1983. 92 p. Andr*ezel, Pierre: see Blixen, Karen. Blixen, Karen: Anecdotes of Destiny. London. University of Chicago Press. 1976. 244 p. Blixen, Karen: The Angelic Avengers. Chicago, III. University of Chicago Press. 1976. 304 p. Blixen, Karen: Carnival. Entertainments and Posthumous Tales. London. Heinemann. 1977. 338 p. Blixen, Karen: Daguerreotypes and other Essays. Chicago, III. University of Chicago Press. 1979. 229 p. Blixen, Karen: Ehrengard. New York. Vintage Books. 1975. 111 p. Blixen, Karen: Isak Dinesen's Africa. With text chosen from the memoirs and letters of Isak Dinesen and photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand a.o. New York. Bantam Press. 1986. 142 p., ill. Blixen, Karen: Last Tales. London. University of Chicago Press. 1976. 341 p. Blixen, Karen: Letters from Africa, 1914-1931. London. Pan Books. 1986. 473 p. Blixen, Karen: Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass. Harmondsworth. Penguin. 1985. 351 p. Blixen, Karen: Seven Gothic Tales. St. Albans. Triad. 1979. 352 p. Blixen, Karen: Winter's Tales. Harmondsworth. Penguin. 1986. 218 p. Bodelsen, Anders: Consider the Verdict. New York. Harper & Row. 1976. 276 p. Bodelsen, Anders: Freezing Point. London. Joseph. 1971. 174 p. Bodelsen, Anders: Hit and run, run, run. Harmondsworth. Penguin. 1971. 219 p. Bodelsen, Anders: Operation Cobra. London. Pelham. 1976. 140 p. Bodelsen, Anders: The Silent Partner. Harmondsworth. Penguin. 1978. 221 p. Bodelsen, Anders: Straus. New York. Harper & Row. 1974. 147 p. Brandt, Jorgen Gustava: Selected Longer Poems. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1983. 71 p. Brandt, Jorgen Gustava: T;ete @a T;ete. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1978. 31 p. Branner, H.C.: Anguish. Copenhagen. The Wind-flower Press. 1980. 63 p. Branner, H.C.: The Mountain. Copenhagen. The Wind-flower Press. 1982. 94 p. Branner, H.C.: No Man knows the Night. London. Secker & Warburg. 1958. 301 p. Branner, H.C.: The Poet and the Girl. Copenhagen. The Wind-flower Press. 1980. 25 p. Branner, H.C.: The Riding Master. London. Secker & Warburg. 1951. 159 p. Branner, H.C.: The Story of Borge. New York. Twayne. 1973. 196 p. Branner, H.C.: Two Minutes of Silence. Madison, Wisc. University of Wisconsin Press. 1966. 211 p. Brogger, Suzanne: Deliver us from Love, New York. Delacorte. 1976. 298 p. Dinesen, Isak: see Blixen, Karen. Ditlevsen, Tove: Complete Freedom and other Stories. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1982. 87 p. Ditlevsen, Tove: Early Spring. London. Women's Press. 1985. 227 p. Hansen, Martin A.: Against the Wind. New York. Ungar. 1979. 273 p. Hansen, Martin A.: The Book. Copenhagen. The Wind-flower Press. 1978. 19 p. Hansen, Martin A.: The Liar. London. Quartet Books. 1986. 205 p. Hansen, Martin A.: Lucky Kristoffer. New York. Twayne. 1974. 377 p. Hansen, Thorkild: Arabia Felix. The Danish Expedition of 1761-1767. London. Collins. 1964. 381 p., ill. Hansen, Thorkild: North West to Hudson Bay. The Life and Times of Jens Munk. London. Collins. 1970. 378 p., ill. Holm, Sven: Termush. London. Faber & Faber. 1969, 110 p. Larsen, Marianne: Selected Poems. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1982. 47 p. Malinovski, Ivan: Critique of Silence. Copenhagen. Gyldendal. 1977. 78 p. Malinovski, Ivan: Fugue. Ill. by Dea Trier Morch. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1986. 66 p., ill. Nordbrandt, Henrik: God's House, Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1979. 39 p. Nordbrandt, Henrik: Selected Poems. 2nd printing. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1982. 83 p. Orum, Poul: Nothing but the Truth. London. Gollancz. 1976. 253 p. Orum, Poul: Scapegoat. New York. Pantheon. 1975. 255 p. Panduro, Leif: Kick me in the Traditions. New York. Eriksson-Taplinger. 1961. 217 p. Panduro, Leif: One of our Millionaires is Missing. New York. Grove Press. 1967. 174 p. Rasmussen, Halfdan: Halfdanes Nonsense and Nursery Rhymes. Ill. by Ernst Clausen, Ib Spang Olsen and Arne Ungermann. Copenhagen. Schonberg. 1973. 52 p., ill. Rasmussen, Halfdan: Hocus Pocus. Nonsense Rhymes. Ill by Ib Spang Olsen. London. Angus & Robertson. 1973. 30 p., ill. Rifbjerg, Klaus: Anna (I) Anna. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1982. 251 p. Rifbjerg, Klaus: Selected Poems. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1984. 45 p. Sarvig, Ole: Late Day. Ill. by Palle Nielsen. Willimantic. Conn. Curbstone Press. 1976. 43 p., ill. Scherfig, Hans: The Idealists. London. Paul Elek. 1949. 224 p. Scherfig, Hans: Stolen Spring. Seattle, Wash. Fjord Press. 1986. 195 p Skou-Hansen, Tage: The Naked Trees. London. Cape. 1959. 222 p. Sorensen, Villy a.o.: Revolt from the Center. London. Marion Boyars. 1981. 190 p. Sorensen, Villy: The Soldier's Christmas Eve. Ill. by Victoria Schaaf. Willimantic, Conn. Trekroner Press. 1973. 19 p., ill. Sorensen, Villy: Tiger in the Kitchen and other Strange Stories. Freeport, N.Y. Books for Libraries Press. 1969. 204 p. Sonne, Jorgen: Flights. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1982. 29 p. Stangerup, Henrik: The Man who wanted to be Guilty. London. Marion Boyars. 1982. 124 p. Stangerup, Henrik: The Road to Lagoa Santa. New York. Marion Boyars. 1984. 284 p. Thorup, Kirsten: Baby. Baton Rouge, La. Louisiana State University Press. 1980. 208 p. Thorup, Kirsten: Love from Trieste. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1980. 59 p. Thorup, Kirsten: Marie. Buffalo, N.Y. Top Stories. 1982. 18 p. Trier Morch, Dea: Winter's Child. Ill. by the author. London. Serpent's Tail. 1986. 260 p., ill. Willumsen, Dorrit: If it really were a Film. Willimantic, Conn. Curbstone Press. 1982. 128 p. Willumsen, Dorrit: Marie. London. The Bodley Head. 1986. 213 p. The Danish Department of the Royal Library KAREN BLIXEN. Karen Blixen believed that she was something! The reply is simple: she certainly was. This is how the Danish writer Elsa Gress describes her admired colleague. Blixen had noble forebears, she spoke aristocratically and felt herself to be an aristocrat. Her lack of success and ability as a coffee-farmer in Africa forced her after her return to Denmark to convince the world by other means. Hers was a distinctively oral talent, she was a compelling story-teller who as time went by taught herself to write her stories down without the loss of their cryptic power of attraction. Her narrative art brings an ancient European traditional type of fiction right into the modern period. Behind the lively and multicoloured surface of her work lies hidden an illusionless and austere knowledge of how human destinies take shape and direction, a sorrowful love. But also an ironical, provocative and at times mocking aloofness from what is half-hearted and untalented. As a person she became a myth who always aroused reactions among her friends and the general public. Although she was criticised as a reactionary and an aristocratic fossil, she stands now as a woman who fills an early and individualistic place in the women's movement and as a commentator who in the age-old role of the story-teller dealt with the most crucial problems of her own time. To her contemporaries she came to be to an increasing degree a person whose opinions were indispensable, a formidable oracle, and the undiminished interest in her since her death, both at home and abroad, shows that she has in no way jeopardised these qualities.