Elsa Gress Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Elsa Gress

Considered by many to be Denmark's literary grande dame, Elsa Gress established her reputation with three successive works: Strejftog (Incursions, 1945), a collection of essays on art and aesthetics; Hvis (If, 1947), a now lost radio play about suicide; and Mellemspil (Entr'Acte, 1947), a novel about a young girl's search for a new life in dreary post-World War II London. Following Strejftog, Hvis and Mellemspil demonstrated Gress's talents for tackling stylistic and formal challenges. Mellemspil, a work in which everything is, according to Henrik Stangerup, "beskrevet ud fra--inde fra--hovedpersonens følsomme sind, i pastelagtige farver, i rids, flygtige, næsten japansk" (described from--and within--the protagonist's sensitive mind, in pastel colors, in outlines, fleeting, nearly Japanese), won the 1947 Schultz Literature Prize for best novel. Throughout her life Gress, who Stangerup characterizes as a "kæmpende humanist på tværs af tre tiårs filosofiske, litterære og kulturpolitiske strømninger, nationale såvel som internationale" (a fighting humanist spanning three decades of philosophical, literary, and cultural-political trends, on the national and international plane), remained an insightful essayist, one of a few Danes who practiced the form with finesse; an enthusiastic dramatist; a novelist and short-story writer who utilized her knowledge of the Anglo-American world; and an autobiographer whose memoir of childhood, Mine mange hjem: Erindringsbog (My Many Homes: A Memoir, 1965), Stangerup describes as "et erindringsværk på linie med de smukkeste i dansk litteratur, fra Johanne Luise Heibergs og til Carl Nielsens og Asta Nielsens" (a memoir on a par with the loveliest in Danish literature, from Johanne Luise Heiberg's up to Carl Nielsen's and Asta Nielsen's).

Elsa Gress biography

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This biography contains 4,064 words (approx. 14 pages at 300 words per page).