Jens Bjørneboe

Began his literary career with the publication of poems in 1951. In 1952 he published his first novel, Før hanen galer, in which he denounces the horror of the Nazis' medical experiments. Jonas, published 1955 is a violent attack on the authoritarian school system and Bjørneboe would turn to the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, becoming a teacher at the Steiner school at Oslo. Bjørneboe would soon become a much disputed writer of novels, essays, poems and plays. Soon after his 1957 novel Under en hårdere himmel, which again dealt with the Nazis, he became more and more radical, turning to marxism and later anarchism during the early sixties. In 1960, he published the novel Den onde hyrde (The Evil Shepherd), in which he attacks the Norwegian prison system. In 1966 he published his most controversial novels: Frihetens øyeblikk (The Moment of Freedom), the first part of a trilogy which became known as 'The History of Bestiality', and Uten en trad (Stark naked), a pornographic novel. Other novels include Kruttårnet (The Powder Magazine, 1969) and Stillheten (Silence, 1973), which he called 'An anti-novel and the ultimate protocol'. He killed himself in 1976.