Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0017/00176.txt

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$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.

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Boyars. 1982. 124 p.

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1984. 284 p.

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     Thorup, Kirsten: Marie. Buffalo, N.Y. Top Stories. 1982. 18 p.

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     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.