Gunvor Hofmo
Gunvor Hofmo (* June 30, 1921 in Oslo, † October 14, 1995 ibid ) was a Norwegian writer and representative of modern Scandinavian poetry.
Life
Gunvor Hofmo grew up in a working class family in the east of Oslo. Because of their resistance against the German occupation many of their relatives were arrested; an aunt and an uncle were murdered in concentration camps. In 1940 she met the Austrian Jewish artist Ruth Maier on their escape from the Nazis. The two became friends. Maier was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 and murdered. These events specific Hofmos life.
After 1945 Hofmo made numerous long trips, including to France, Denmark, England and the Netherlands. She wrote essays for the newspaper Dagbladet and published until 1955 five volumes of poetry. In the 1951 published work nattergaler blind (blind nightingales ) they showed solidarity with the outcasts of society, with the beggars and cripples uprooted. They often expressed in their poetry from the feeling of her homelessness and their search for God. She felt a spiritual closeness to the German-speaking poets Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan.
1953, she suffered a nervous breakdown. After a diagnosis of schizophrenia, she was intermittently for 22 years in treatment; until 1975 she was released from the psychiatric hospital in Gaustad.
After 16 years of hiatus, she released until 1994 fifteen other poetry collections.
" Subsequent poetry collections [ ... ] evidence of a further deepening of religious experiences. Gunvor Hofmos form language was initially traditional, but increasingly became bolder and compacted to a glowing expression of her mysterious, sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying visions. "
Hofmo very little has been translated. The Norwegian writer Jan Erik Vold 2000 published a biography.