Ellen Einan

Ellen Einan (born June 5, 1931 in Svolvær , † March 25, 2013 in Kabelvåg ) was a Norwegian poet and illustrator .

Live and act

Ellen Einan was born in Svolvær, the largest city in Lofoten . Her parents were the farmers Sigrid and Oluf Nymo, who ran a farm near the beach, a few miles from the center of Svolvær. She had four siblings, including her twin brother Arne.

After growing up, Einan did various odd jobs. So she worked in her home town in the Alders Hvile old people's home and as a domestic help. She traveled occasionally and was among other things a shepherdess in Trøndelag , domestic help in Oslo , and agricultural assistant in Denmark . As an adult, she began training as a nurse, which she broke off again. Most recently she worked as a receptionist in a Svolvær hotel. She also raised three children.

Before her first lyrical attempts, Einan devoted herself to drawing. She mainly drew animals, especially horses. The idea of writing came to her after reading a manual on automatic writing that she had borrowed from the library. According to her own statements, she wrote all of her poems "automatically", without actually having an understanding of poetry, only under the influence of her subconscious . Many of her drawings were also created this way.

After a few years in which she had presented her work to various publishers, she finally made her debut in 1982 at the age of 51 with the volume of poetry Den gode engsøster at Solum Forlag. Twelve more volumes of poetry followed. She illustrated many of them herself.

Einan's poems often have a thematic relation to life, death and fertility. Among other things, she wrote frequently about biological functions, spring and children. There were also biblical, mystical, fairytale, romantic and fantastic elements. Her illustrations show a high degree of symbolism , her writing style is very compact. The uniqueness of their work is often emphasized in literary criticism.

Einan quickly gained notoriety in Norway. In 2002 she was honored with the Norwegian Aschehougprisen literary prize, which is endowed with 100,000 crowns by the Aschehoug publishing house . In 2009, a jury organized by libraries in Nordland awarded her the Havmann Prize . In 2012 she won the Dobloug Prize of the Svenska Academies together with Roy Jacobsen .

She continued to live relatively secluded in Svolvær, despite the attention paid to her. The last time she was in public was in 2010 when an exhibition of her drawings was shown in the Nordnorsk Kunstnersenter there. In old age she suffered from increasing dementia and died at the age of 81 in the Marithaugen sykehjem care home in Kabelvåg .

Works

• The gode engsøster. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1982, ISBN 8-256-00265-4 .
• Muldsøster. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1983, ISBN 8-256-00307-3 .
• Jorden har hvisket. Gyldendal, Oslo 1984, ISBN 8-205-15386-8 .
• Søster natt. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1985, ISBN 8-256-00403-7 .
• Nattbarn. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1986, ISBN 8-256-00437-1 .
• Sene rop mellom bronsebergene. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1987, ISBN 8-256-00488-6 .
• Hestene våker i duggtoneengen. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1989, ISBN 8-256-00654-4 .
• Døgnfargene er mørke. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1991, ISBN 8-256-00733-8 .
• De syv nattstegene. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1992, ISBN 8-256-00829-6 .
• Jade for min angel. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1994, ISBN 8-256-00940-3 .
• Inside for og utenfor er ett. Solum Forlag, Oslo 1999, ISBN 8-256-01195-5 .
• Dagen for min uro. Solum Forlag, Oslo 2004, ISBN 8-256-01424-5 .
• Noen venter på bud. Solum Forlag, Oslo 2009, ISBN 978-8-256-01623-5 .
• Samlede dict. ed. and with an afterword by Jan Erik Vold , Bokvennen, Oslo 2011, ISBN 978-8-274-88260-7 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Ellen Einan in the WorldCat bibliographic database
• Ellen Einan in the norske leksikon store
• Biography and Photo (Norwegian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Billy Jacobsen: Ellen Einan nrk.no, accessed April 5, 2013.
2. ↑ Unni Langås: Syster, Sun, Symbol. ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. nordicwomensliterature.net, accessed April 5, 2013. 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Ellen Einan In: Store norske leksikon , accessed on April 5, 2013.
4. ↑ Aschehoug-prisen til Ellen Einan, Lyrikeren Ellen Einan ble torsdag tildelt Aschehoug-prisen på 100,000 kroner for sitt forfatterskap som består of 11 diktsamlinger. nrk.no, accessed April 5, 2013.
5. ↑ Havmannprisen  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. rana.kommune.no, accessed on April 5, 2013.  
6. ↑ Hugo Johansen: Lyrikeren Ellen Einan he død. In: Lofotposten March 27, 2013, accessed April 5, 2013.