Kirsten Thorup

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kirsten Thorup (birth name Kirsten Christensen ; born February 9, 1942 in Gelsted , Funen ) is a Danish writer who received both the Critics' Awards and the Søren Gyldendal Prize and the Literature Prize of the Nordic Council .

Life

Origin and literary debut

Kirsten Thorup, the daughter of a bookseller , grew up on the island of Funen mostly with boys. Many of her childhood and adolescent experiences in the Danish provinces in the 1950s later became part of her literary novels , stories and television plays about the girl and future wife Jonna.

She was the first of her family to receive secondary education and after graduating from high school in 1961 , she lived in Great Britain for a year . After her return, she began studying English and literature at the University of Copenhagen in 1962 , but in 1963 she married the theater director Ib Thorup. After the birth of their child in 1965, she devoted herself to writing as well as raising children.

In the beginning, the depiction of the disorientation and strangeness of her actors from the provinces in urban life shaped her works, as she did in her literary debut in 1967 with the volume of poetry Indeni - udenfor , which was followed by other collections of poetry and short stories. At the end of the 1960s , modernist text and language experiments emerged in the description of losses, personalities and overcoming distances. Their identification with the portrayal of existential borderline experiences gained increasing strength, especially of people on the fringes of society and of interpersonal conflicts in the television and radio games in the early 1970s .

Successful novels and literary prizes

During this time she moved to the Copenhagen district of Vesterbro and wrote the sensational novel Baby , published in 1973 , which described in a sober and monotonous style the desperation and search of some residents of the metropolis for love. The novel was also her first attempt to show solidarity for fellow human beings who fail to express themselves and communicate with one another. The novel had her breakthrough, especially later in the USA after its publication in English in 1979.

The susceptibility of people and their powerlessness was also the subject of the novel Lille Jonna (1977), which was continued in 1979 with the independent novel The Long Summer . The story of the peasant family, which experienced a rise in society, but later fell back to its old social standing, offered a lively and nuanced picture of a Danish provincial family from the 1950s. Necessities and everyday life shaped life, while longings had to take a back seat. The two novels were the prelude to a series of other contemporary novels that dealt with topics such as the rise within the affluent society, youth revolts and the emergence of the feminist movement in the 1970s, as well as the identity struggles, and thus represent a development of this time.

Her dramatic texts for stage works and radio broadcasts on Danmarks Radio also attracted attention . She achieved greater success in 1978 with her screenplay for the television play Else Krant, based on a novel by Amalie Skram .

She had a great success with the two-volume work Himmel og helvede (1982), which was also made into a film in 1988 . The book is set in Vesterbro during the youth revolts in May 1968 , although the characters from the Jonna novels appear again, but the focus is on the girl Maria, whose development into women and emancipation from the norms and values ​​in the parental home is portrayed. With its broad contemporary presentation, the book reflects the collective euphoria and conviction of a possible liberation from the most diverse constraints and for the betterment of the world: Maria's mother leaves Maria's father after many years of oppression, while she falls in love with the hostile woman Andersen and engages socially. For the novel, she received both the Critics' Awards and De Gyldne Laurbær from the Danish Booksellers Club in 1982 .

The novel Den yderste grænse (1987) is again about Jonna, who after Asger's suicide gives up her dream of a different and perfect life. Whereas Himmel og helvede was shaped by dreams and possibilities of change, in Den yderste grænse, conversely, images of doom and fantasies of a judgment day dominate . In 1987 Kirsten Thorup was honored with the Søren Gyldendal Prize for this novel.

The theme of an apocalypse can also be found in the novel Elskede ukendte (1994). In the portrayal of the main characters Karl and René, who develop a religious gigantomania , Kirsten Thorup adopts a critical and black-painting description of the time and society, which does nothing against the cult of death and the dark side of people.

In both her first modernist collections of poetry and short stories, as well as her later, more realistic novels, she dealt with the boundaries between people and their environment, the clashes that occur when people try to express themselves and develop, and when life, fantasy life and Opportunities for rebellion collide.

Kirsten Thorup has been a member of the board of the Danish PEN since 1995. His life's work was recognized by the Danish Academy with its Grand Prize in 2000 .

In later novels such as Bonsai (2001), which was awarded the DR Novel Prize, and Ingenmandsland (2004), which was awarded the Danske Bank Literature Prize, she also dealt with topics such as homosexuality , but also dementia and life in Nursing homes apart. In April 2011 Tilfældets gud was published , which is about the stressful entrepreneur Ana who seeks the meaning of life by financing a project in Gambia , which is unsuccessful. Her novel Erindring om kærligheden was awarded the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 2017.

more publishments

  • Love from Trieste , poems, 1969
  • I dagens anledning , short stories, 1968
  • I dag er det Daisy , poems, 1971
  • Frisørinden , television play, 1971
  • Hvornår dør Maria? , Television play, 1972
  • Histories om Mally , radio game, 1973
  • Helte dør aldrig , television play, 1976
  • Romantica , 1983
  • Sidste nat før kærligheden , 1989
  • Paradis project , 1997
  • Førkrigstid , 2006
in German language

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Sabotage of a Life (book review on Deutschlandfunk, August 22, 2005)
personal data
SURNAME Thorup, Kirsten
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Christensen, Kirsten (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Gelsted , Funen, Denmark