Henrik Pontoppidan
Danish writer, Nobel Laureate
Who was Henrik Pontoppidan?
Henrik Pontoppidan lived from July 24, 1857 to August 21, 1943. The son of a Jutlandic vicar and belonging to an old family of vicars and writers, Pontoppidan gave up an education as an engineer, worked as a primary school teacher and finally became a freelance journalist and full-time writer, making his debut in 1881. The first phase of his work constitutes rebellious social criticism, and as such was also a revolt against his own privileged family background. As a writer he was an interesting figure, distancing himself both from the conservative environment in which he was brought up and from his socialist contemporaries and friends.
Historical significance
Henrik Pontoppidan (Danish: [ˈhenˀʁek pʰʌnˈtsʰʌpitæn]; 24 July 1857 – 21 August 1943) was a Danish realist writer who shared with Karl Gjellerup the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1917 for "his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark." Pontoppidan's novels and short stories — informed with a desire for social progress but despairing, later in his life, of its realization — present an unusually comprehensive picture of his country and his epoch. He was the youngest and in many ways the most original and influential member of the Modern Break-Through.
