Jens Bjørneboe (1920 - 1976)

Translator's Note: This is a machine-assisted translation completed on July 4, 2025. While care has been taken to maintain accuracy, this translation has not yet undergone human review or validation. Please note that specialized terms, historical references, and nuanced content may benefit from expert review.

The author Jens Ingvald Bjørneboe was born in Kristiansand and raised in a bourgeois environment.

He was highly rebellious, aspired to become an artist, and pursued art education in Oslo and Stockholm. In 1946, he exhibited 45 paintings in his hometown. In 1950, he was appointed as a teacher at the newly established Waldorf School in Oslo, where he worked for seven years. Bjørneboe made his literary debut in 1951 with the book Dikt (Poems), a collection comprising 14 well-crafted sonnets and 11 free verse poems, which received favorable critical reception. Already at this early stage, literary critic Espen Haavardsholm (1981) argued that the poems exemplified “Bjørneboe’s lifelong attempt to compensate for and conceal his own instinctual disposition.” This was particularly evident in the poem Munken (The Monk), especially in its final two stanzas:

Ja, inne i meg lå en hund jeg prylte.
Med nakne tenner, knurrende og bange,     
lå noe lemlestet og krumt og hylte      

og snerret mot meg som en såret fange!     
Og skrek jeg selv med ham en sjelden gang,     
da trodde hele klostret at jeg sang! 

Eng. translation:

Yes, within me lay a dog I used to beat.
With bared teeth, trembling and afraid,
there lay something maimed, hunched, and howling,

snarling at me like a wounded captive.
And if I ever screamed along with him,
the whole monastery believed I sang.

In the poem David om Jonathan (David about Jonathan), written four years later, Bjørneboe returned to his theme of song: “And of our love my song shall tell, / when all other songs are done!” (published in Ashes, Wind and Earth, 1968). This, it seems, would also come to define Jens Bjørneboe himself. The last work he was writing before taking his own life by hanging in 1976 was the autobiographical manuscript With Horns and Tail, an unpublished text first referenced in Fredrik Wandrup’s biography Jens Bjørneboe (1984). In this work, Bjørneboe speaks openly and honestly about his bisexual orientation, which he had always been aware of and had come to regard as natural since the age of 13 or 14.

It was also as an early teenager that Bjørneboe made his first suicide attempt—an event that resonates with his later critique of the Norwegian prison system in the novel The Evil Shepherd (1960). In the novel, a young homosexual boy named Alfred hangs himself in his cell, knowing he cannot endure two and a half years of claustrophobic imprisonment. His crime was touching the genitals of a 14-year-old boy. This novel later inspired Bjørneboe to write the play Congratulations on the Day (1965), in which he incorporated various songs (i.e., poems), including Elegy for a Hanged Queer:

Å, allnatur, her er din sønn
Vår yngste og fortapte bror
Vi fant ham bak en fengselsmur
Vi bringer ham og har en bønn
Til deg som er hans sanne mor:
Ta ham tilbake, allnatur
La ham bli aske, vann og jord!

Eng. translation: 

O, all-nature, here is your son—
Our youngest and most lost of brothers.
We found him behind prison walls.
We bring him now and offer a prayer
To you, who are his truest mother:
Take him back, all-nature,
Let him become ashes, water, and earth.

Several of the songs from the play have been set to music and recorded, including "Flowers for Genet (Hommage à Jean Genet)". In this piece, Bjørneboe lists sodomites and pederasts among other so-called deviants, all of whom he insists have their natural place on Earth:

Halliker og sodomitter
Blottere og transvestitter
Pederaster, fetisjister
Diktere og masochister
Drankere og morfinister –
Jomfru, alle smerters moder
Trøst Genet vår stakkars broder!
Også han er tornekronet.

Eng. translation:

Pimps and sodomites,
Exhibitionists and transvestites,
Pederasts, fetishists,
Poets and masochists,
Drunkards and morphine addicts—
Virgin, mother of all sorrows,
Console Genet, our wretched brother!
He too wears the crown of thorns.

Jens Bjørneboe frequently addresses the topic of homosexuality in his works and is particularly concerned with the prominent role that so-called deviants have played in European cultural and social life. This is especially evident in The Moment of Freedom (1966) and The Silence (1973), which, together with The Powder Tower (1969), comprise the novel trilogy The History of Bestiality. These books are considered Bjørneboe’s principal works and are characterized by a biting humor and a vivid, often provocative language, occasionally laced with French slang. However, in more intimate scenes, the tone shifts entirely. The language becomes everyday and natural—never crude or vulgar, and free of taboo expressions, as illustrated in this passage from The Powder Tower:

What we both desired was palpable—present in the air between us. […] As soon as we entered the room, he looked at me and smiled, then began undressing with quiet confidence, revealing his arousal.

A similarly restrained language is employed in the banned scandal novel Uten en tråd (Without a Stitch, published anonymously in 1966), in which the controversial Bjørneboe deliberately avoids obscene vocabulary. Sexual acts are described directly, yet without vulgarity, as all colloquial or Latin terms are replaced with more poetic—though still comprehensible—metaphors:

He lay down upon him, their bodies touching closely. […] The boys lay side by side, kissing gently, while their youthful desire was visibly stirred. The older one reached out and touched the other with care, moving with a tender rhythm.

Nevertheless, the erotic and naturalistic depictions were labeled obscene and prohibited. A major court case was launched against Bjørneboe and the publisher Pax. Freedom of expression does not always extend to realistic portrayals of sexuality - only to those that do not offend the sensibilities of the bourgeoisie and the state church. Bjørneboe could not, in good conscience, accept the notion of a separate moral code for sexual life. In the foreword to Uten en tråd (Without a Stitch), he writes that regardless of what one does with oneself or with others—be they girls or boys—the same moral principles apply as elsewhere: one must not use force or cause harm.

“To condemn homosexuality would be to declare the finest expressions of human culture as perverse,” was one of Bjørneboe’s many pointed remarks during the trial. One of the defense witnesses, Magne Severinsen (then 35), the country’s leading sex shop owner, drew attention and respect in the courtroom by openly identifying as homosexual: “We must move beyond the idea that only the ‘normal’ should have the opportunity to live out their emotional lives.” Bjørneboe was convicted, and the book was banned. The judge’s conclusion: “Sexual nihilism in the form of a novel.” Uten en tråd was reissued in Norway in 1988—still officially banned, but without consequence.

In the sequel Uden en trævl II (Without a Stitch II, published in Denmark in 1968), the protagonist Lillian undergoes various stages, experiences, and relationships before settling with Renate, a lesbian sex worker. Compared to Uten en tråd, the Danish sequel is more openly critical—of the church, the legal system, and the entire apparatus of power. The book is also illustrated with Bjørneboe’s own satirical caricatures of society.

Bjørneboe’s final dramatic work is Dongery (Dongeri, staged at Scene 7 in 1974 and published in 1976), a collage on fashion and marketing, commissioned by Oslo Municipality’s Information Centre as a commentary on the power of advertising. In the play, Sales Manager Sørensen presents a bold and satirical idea:

“We market the homosexuals. In homosexual circles, it is currently fashionable to appear masculine. […] Previously, it was fashionable to be feminine. Today, the trend is to have a clean-cut, heterosexual appearance. So, we must market masculine-looking gay men and delicately feminine lesbian women. Homosexuality is a commodity—just like everything else.”

Bjørneboe proceeds to list a number of the world’s most famous homosexuals who could be used in advertising, including: “Walt Whitman also looked magnificently masculine. And Oscar Wilde—two meters tall and strong as a horse.” Bjørneboe was widely read and knew where his intellectual roots lay. He also claimed to detect homosexual traits in typically masculine authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Jack London (both of whom had “addressed” the topic in their writings), but believed they had repressed this aspect of themselves: “As is well known, both London and Hemingway succumbed to alcohol and suicide. Not because of their orientation, but because of its suppression.” This is written in Med horn og hale (With Horns and Tail), prompting Fredrik Wandrup to ask: “Was the same true for Bjørneboe himself?”

It was not until the 1970s that Bjørneboe openly embraced his identity, declaring himself to be at least 60 % gay. In his autobiography, he recounts having had a steady male companion already in his teenage years. He warns others against repressing their sexual feelings and strongly advocates for the elimination of intolerance, prejudice, and inhibition in matters of homosexuality. He encourages gay individuals to come forward and live openly.

A “version” of Bjørneboe’s final, difficult years is found in the novel tribute Villskudd (Wild Shoots, 1979) by Gudmund Vindland (born Pettersen, later Justås, and today known as Gudmund Vindsun). In addition to portraying their (romantic) relationship, Vindland also describes his role as the model for the ship’s boy Pat in Bjørneboe’s Haiene (The Sharks, 1974). In this gripping seafaring novel, a mutual and dependent “father–son” relationship gradually develops between Pat and the second mate, Peder Jensen.

Jens Bjørneboe had a prolific literary output, encompassing both fiction and nonfiction, and was an active contributor to newspapers. He was deeply socially engaged, especially in matters concerning those marginalized by society—such as in the school system, as depicted in the novel Jonas. Bjørneboe considered himself an anarchist and had a profound aversion to authority and abuse of power.

At Christmas in 1975, Bjørneboe published a poem in Dagbladet, titled Farvel, bror alkohol (Farewell, Brother Alcohol), marking the end of a period in which he consumed two to three bottles of whisky a day. Depression and poor health are believed to have contributed to his suicide in May 1976, at the age of 55. Many of his books remain highly readable to this day, and among his most frequently cited works is the thoughtful and sharply ironic poem Ti bud til en ung mann som vil frem i verden (Ten Commandments for a Young Man Who Wants to Get Ahead), written in 1963.

Jens Bjørneboe was married twice—first in 1945 to Lisel Funck, a German refugee in Sweden who always dressed in men’s clothing. They were spiritual soulmates, childless, and separated in 1959. The following year, Bjørneboe married Tone Tveteraas, with whom he had three daughters: Marianne, Therese, and Suzanne.