Inger Christensen

Inger Christensen (16 January 1935 – 2 January 2009) was a Danish poet, novelist, essayist and editor. She is considered the foremost Danish poetic experimentalist of her generation.

Life and work Born in the town of Vejle, on the eastern Jutland coast of Denmark, Christensen's father was a tailor, and her mother a cook before her marriage. After graduating from Vejle Gymnasium, she moved to Copenhagen and, later, to Århus, studying at the Teachers' College there. She received her certificate in 1958. During this same period, Christensen began publishing poems in the journal Hvedekorn, and was guided by the noted Danish poet and critic Poul Borum (1934–1996), whom she married in 1959 and divorced in 1976.

After teaching at the College for Arts in Holbæk from 1963 to 1964, she turned to writing full-time, producing two of her major early collections, Lys (Light, 1962) and Græs (Grass, 1963), both examining the limits of self-knowledge and the role of language in perception. Her most acclaimed work of the 1960s, however, was It (Det), which, on one level, explored social, political and aesthetic issues, but more deeply probed large philosophical questions of meaning. The work, almost incantatory in tone, opposes issues such as fear and love and power and powerlessness. in 2001, a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. She won the Grand Prix des Biennales Internationales de Poésie in 1991; She received the Rungstedlund Award in 1991. Der österreichische Staatspreis für Literature ("Austrian State Prize for European Literature") in 1994; in 1994, she won the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize, known as the 'little Nobel'; the European Poetry Prize in 1995; The America Award in 2001; and received numerous other distinctions. Her works have been translated into several languages, and she was frequently mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. 1963: Græs: digte (Grass: Poems), poems 1964: Evighedsmaskinen, (The Eternity Machine), novel 1967: Azorno, novel (Azorno, translated into English by Denise Newman; New Directions, 2009) 1969: Det, poems (It, translated into English by Susanna Nied) 1972: Intriganterne (The Schemers), play 1976: Det malede værelse (The Painted Room: A Tale of Mantua, translated into English by Denise Newman; Harvill Press, 2000), novel 1979: Brev i april (Letter in April), poems 1979: Den historie der skal fortælles (The Story That Must Be Told), essays and texts 1981: Alfabet (Alphabet, translated into English by Susanna Nied), twice translated into Swedish, poems 1982: Del af labyrinten (Part of the Maze), essays 1982: Den store ukendte rejse (The Big Unknown Journey), children's book 1987: En vinteraften i Ufa og andre spil (A Winter Evening in Ufa and Other Plays), plays 1989: Digt om døden (Poem on Death), poem 1989: Lys og Græs (Light and Grass), poems 1990: Mikkel og hele menageriet (Mikkel and the Whole Menagerie), illustrated by Lillian Brøgger, children's book 1991: Sommerfugledalen, (Butterfly Valley: A Requiem, translated into English by Susanna Nied), sonnet sequence 1998: Samlede digte (Collected Poems) 2000: Hemmelighedstilstanden (The State of Secrecy), essays

Musical settings The complete "Butterfly valley" has been set twice by two Danish composers, Niels Rosing-Schow and Svend Nielsen. Both versions were, separately, recorded by Ars Nova Copenhagen with poetry reading by the poet.