Gate Jonsson

Tor Jonsson (* as Tor Johnsen , May 14, 1916 in Lom ; † January 14, 1951 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian writer , best known as a poet . He wrote in the Nynorsk language form .

Life

Childhood and youth

Tor Jonsson's birthplace and home

Jonsson's parents were the farmer Johannes Johnsen and his wife Tøro Torsdotter Erlandsstugu. Tor Johnsen's father ran the Kroken farm near Lom in Gudbrandsdal as a tenant and was active in local politics with the Workers' Democrats and later in the Radical Folk Party. When the Kroken family had to leave in 1924, Johannes Johnsen built a small log cabin with the help of friends . He did not own his own land to cultivate, so he had to earn his living as a wage laborer. When Tor Jonsson was 13 years old, his father died of a heart attack. The family lived in poor conditions.

Jonsson had already enjoyed reading as a child and wrote his first poems as a teenager. His classmates therefore compared him to Olav Aukrust , a well-known poet from Lom, who actually influenced his early works. Jonsson's oldest surviving work is in praise of his teacher from 1931. From 1932 he published short stories in newspapers. For this he used the name Jonsson instead of his maiden name Johnsen. In 1937 he put together a volume of poetry, but could not find a publisher.

Career as a writer and journalist

In 1939 Jonsson, who worked as a casual worker in agriculture and horticulture, began training as a gardener in Lena , but returned to Lom the following year because of the Second World War . During the war, in autumn 1943, his first book was published, the collection of poems Mogning i mørkret . Although the book received little media attention, 1,300 copies were sold. Jonsson's poetry in this phase of his work is stylistically compared with the works of Nordahl Grieg .

After the war, Jonsson found a job as a journalist for Dølenes Blad newspaper in Otta . From November 1945 he was in charge of the Lyrikk for livet section , in which he published poems by Norwegian and foreign writers. He continued this column in the successor newspaper Dølablad and from 1946 in the newspaper Hallingdølen . He also wrote articles for the newspapers. In these, Jonsson, who was a socialist through the influence of his father, dealt with the war, among other things. He later criticized the church , from which he left in 1946, and the Kristelig Folkeparti . The public reaction to these articles led him to step down and return to Lom. From there he wrote as a freelance journalist mainly for the newspapers Dagbladet and Arbeiderbladet .

In 1946 his second volume of poetry, Berg ved blått vann , was published, which was praised by the critics. The volume also includes the poem Norsk Kjærleikssong , which Jonsson considered his best work to date in 1949. The third book, Jarnnetter , which followed in 1948 , was also well received by the critics. However, some critics found that the work was out of date in terms of content.

In 1948 Jonsson received a scholarship and went on a trip to Finland - the homeland of the poet Elmer Diktonius, whom he admired . This was his first stay abroad. In addition to an unpublished travel diary, he also wrote poems and articles there. After returning to Lom, he moved in with his mother, whose health deteriorated. The texts he wrote from 1949 onwards differed from the earlier works in terms of their autobiographical elements. He also wrote his first drama, the one-act play Siste stikk , which was awarded a prize by the Norwegian Ministry of Churches .

Last months in Oslo

After his mother's death, Jonsson moved to Oslo in 1950 , where he published the book Nesler , a collection of his essays. A second volume was published posthumously in 1952. He also worked on his fourth collection of poems, Ei dagbog for mitt herte , in which loneliness, longing and death play a major role. After his death, the completed manuscript was found in an envelope labeled Til forlaget (To the publisher) on his desk.

Jonsson was not happy in Oslo, although he was now a successful writer and had no more financial worries. He was lonely and depressed, addicted to alcohol and took pills. On January 10, 1951, he attempted suicide , of which he died in hospital four days later. He was buried in his hometown of Lom. His parents' house is now part of the Lom community museum.

literature

• Kjerstin Moody: Tor Jonsson . In: Tanya Thresher (Ed.): Twentieth-Century Norwegian Writers (=  Dictionary of Literary Biography ). tape 297 . Gale, Detroit, et al. 2004 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Horst Bien: Jonsson, Tor in Meyers Taschenlexikon Nordeuropean Literaturen , Leipzig 1978
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Moody, p. 214
3. ^ ^{A b c d e f} Jan Olav Gatland: Tor Jonsson in the Norsk biografisk leksikon
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Moody, p. 215
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Moody, p. 216