Poetry
Jeg vil hjem til menneskene
Not translated into English
Gunvor Hofmo · 1946
Synopsis
Published in the aftermath of the war, the collection speaks of a reality shattered by violence and death. Per Vaglum singles out in it “Det finnes ingen hverdag mer”, where no everyday life is possible any longer after the dead, “Ensomhet 1”, where solitude becomes a shelter on a road of frost and despair, and “Den sinnssyke tanten”, the portrait of a mad aunt whom no one delivers. Two poems evoke the death of Ruth Maier, and the title expresses the wish to return among people.
Context
The collection appeared in 1946; according to Per Vaglum, in the journal Michael, the critics welcomed the expression of a shattered post-war reality. Nordic Women's Literature invites readers to approach the early collections against a background of the destruction of meaning and of humanity by the war, and recalls that the author, first regarded as the poet of her generation, was later judged obscure. Four books followed up to 1955. In 2025 the Vega theatre in Oslo drew from it a musical production in which she meets Ruth Maier again.
Who it is for
Short, dark poems, with no French or English translation, on mourning and postwar solitude.
Prizes and reception
The first book of a poet whom the encyclopaedia of Nordic women's literatures ranks among the figures of postwar modernism.
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