Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen

Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen (29 November 1900 – 24 March 1938) was a Faroese writer. He has a distinct place in Scandinavian literature, as he is the only Faroese writer to achieve international best-seller status. This status derives from his sole (unfinished) novel, Barbara. The novel was translated into five other languages shortly after the first edition in the Danish language. It was also adapted as a motion picture directed by Nils Malmros in 1997 (see Barbara).

These facts, together with Jacobsen's essays, a study of the Faroe Islands published in the guise of a travel guide, and a volume of his letters, are sufficient to suggest that had he lived longer, he would have been one of the outstanding literary figures in Scandinavia in the twentieth century. He was one of five Faroese writers, all born between 1900 and 1903, who represented a remarkable blossoming of literature in a country which had no tradition of literature in a modern sense. Jacobsen, together with William Heinesen, Christian Matras, Heðin Brú, and Martin Joensen, created modern Faroese literature, whether writing in Danish, as did Jacobsen and Heinesen, or the Faroese language, as did the others.

Early years Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen was born on 29 November 1900 in Tórshavn. His father, merchant Martin Meinhardt Jacobsen, was of Faroese, Swedish, and Danish descent, and, having been born and spent his childhood in Copenhagen, was mainly Danish speaking. His mother, Maren Frederikke Mikkelsen, was thoroughly Faroese. Their home was thus bilingual, and, according to Heinesen, a distant relative, Jørgen-Frantz spoke Danish to his father and Faroese to his mother and siblings. In general, their extended family was interested in music and theater, and Jørgen-Frantz thus grew up in a highly cultured environment.

He first went to school in Tórshavn, where he took his middle-school examination. He began attending Sorø Academy in Denmark in 1916. His father died the following year, but Jacobsen continued his studies, passing his final examination and leaving school in 1919. Armed with this degree, he went to the University of Copenhagen to study history and French, but in 1922 he developed tuberculosis, and ill health prevented him from finishing his studies until 1932. After graduation, he worked for two years as a journalist on the newspaper Politiken. He gave up journalism in 1934 in order to write a history of the Greenland monopoly—a work that he never finished, in large part because of continued ill health.

Death Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen died on 24 March 1938, after suffering from tuberculosis for nearly sixteen years. His position in Scandinavian literature is unlike that of any other; much of what has been published results from the decision by Christian Matras and William Heinesen to preserve his memory. The one novel on which his reputation rests is unfinished and yet could scarcely have been finished more successfully, and this incomplete work has had enormous sales both in Scandinavia and beyond, standing as a milestone in twentieth-century Scandinavian fiction.

Writings by the author

Books Danmark og Færøerne, Kultur og Videnskab, no. 25 (Copenhagen: V. Pio, 1927). Færøerne: Natur og Folk, English chapter summaries by T. King (Tórshavn: H. N. Jacobsens Bókahandils forlag, 1936). Barbara: Roman (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1939). Nordiske Kroniker, edited by Christian Matras (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1943).

Editions in English Barbara, translated by W. Glyn Jones (Sawtry, UK: Dedalus Books, 2013). Barbara, translated by George Johnston (Norwich, UK: Norvik Press, 1993). Barbara, translated by Estrid Bannister (London, Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1948).

Letters , edited by William Heinesen (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1958).