Klaus Rifbjerg

Klaus Rifbjerg (Copenhagen, 1931 – 2015) was a Danish novelist, poet, playwright, journalist and literary critic who wrote in Danish. He is one of the most prolific writers in his country's literature and a central figure in the modernisation of Danish letters in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1970 he received the Nordic Council's Literature Prize, and his name remains closely tied to that renewal.

The son of two teachers, he grew up on Amager, an island that is part of Copenhagen. He studied English and literature in Copenhagen and spent a year at Princeton University in the United States. His breakthrough came in 1958 with the novel Den kroniske uskyld, and from then on he published an unusually wide output: more than a hundred novels, along with poetry, short stories, plays, television, radio and film scripts, children's books and diaries.

His writing grew steadily more experimental through the 1960s, culminating in Anna (jeg) Anna. From 1970 onward, and for roughly twenty-five years, his texts became looser in structure and often humorous or sarcastic, frequently leaving their protagonists alone with existential and psychological troubles. A recurring theme is childhood and the difficulty young people have in forming their own identity. In the 2000s he turned to historical events as a new source of inspiration.

Rifbjerg also worked as a journalist and critic. He co-edited the magazine Vindrosen with Villy Sørensen, and from 1984 to 1991 he was literary director of the publisher Gyldendal. He is often regarded as the first true modernist author in Danish. He died in Copenhagen in 2015, after a long illness, at the age of 83.