Iben Mondrup

Iben Mondrup née Mortensen (born 1969) is a Danish novelist who spent her childhood in Greenland. A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, she turned to writing in 2009. publishing eight novels by 2023. Like many of her works which draw on her experience of life in Greenland and deal with family conflicts, Godhavn won the (Danmarks Radio's novel prize) in 2015. Her subsequent novels have also been best sellers. Now divorced, Mondrup has two children and lives in Copenhagen.

Early life and family Born in Copenhagen on 26 September 1969, Iben Mondrup is the daughter of the schoolteachers Ebbe and Kirsten Mortensen. She moved to Greenland with her parents in 1972.

Mondrup has been married three times, first when she was 17 with the Greenlandic Dane Efa Olsen

It is, however, thanks to her novels that Mondrup has gained recognition. Her early works, Ved slusen (2009), Store Malene (2013) and Godhavn (2014) are all closely associated with Greenland. Not until 2016 with the family conflicts in Karenminde does she move into Denmark itself. Vi er brødre (2018) shows how two brothers develop in completely different directions after World War II. The third book in the trilogy, Bjørn, continues the story of adopted Greenlandic children.

Awards For her novel Godhavn, Mondrup was awarded Danmarks Radio's Novel Prize in 2015. In 2017, for Karensminde she won the Blixen Prize for fiction.