Axel Jensen by the piano. ©Robert E. Haraldsen

Axel Jensen (February 12, 1932 – February 13, 2003) was a Norwegian author. From 1957 until 2002 he published both fiction and non-fiction texts which include novels, poems, essays, a biography, manuscripts for cartoons and animated films. Image File history File links Summary Picture taken in restaurant Telegrafen in Drøbak, Norway, © 2002 Robert E. Haraldsen Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Summary Picture taken in restaurant Telegrafen in Drøbak, Norway, © 2002 Robert E. Haraldsen Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... February 12 is the 43rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ...

Biography

Jensen was born in Trondheim. Thou first made his debut as a novelist in Oslo in 1955 with the novel Dyretemmerens kors (1955), but later he burned the entire storage of books.

In the 50's he and his wife, Marianne (later renamed Marianne Ihlen), lived on the Greek island of Hydra. Jensen was a close friend of the Canadian musician and poet Leonard Cohen. Jensen initiated a relationship with Cohen's girlfriend Lena, and Cohen lived a couple of years on Hydra after the break between Axel Jensen and his wife. There is widespread belief that the character Lorenzo in the novel Joacim (1961) is modelled after Cohen, but Jensen also told Cohen that Lorenzo was modelled after the Swedish novelist Göran Tunström. Baron Strucker, retconned founder of HYDRA, wearing the HYDRA logo on his chest. ... Leonard Norman Cohen, CC (born September 21, 1934 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian poet, novelist, and singer-songwriter. ... Göran Tunström (1937–February 5, 2000) was a Swedish author from Sunne in Värmland. ...

After some time, Jensen returned to Norway and settled in Fredrikstad. There, Noel Cobb, an English poet and student of psychology, came to interview him. Soon he became sexually involved with Lena. Axel then left Fredrikstad and went to live in London. County Østfold District Municipality NO-0106 Administrative centre Fredrikstad Mayor (2006) Ole Haabeth (Ap) Official language form BokmÃ¥l Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 283 288 km² 283 km² 0. ... Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of the living mind, brain, and behavior. ...

Jensen suffered from a severe depression after the break-up with Lena. But in London he met the psychatrist R. D. Laing and received therapy from him. After recovering, Jensen worked as an assistant at the institution Kingsley Hall. Laing was a close friend the rest of his life. London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... R.D.Laing; photo credit Robert E. Haraldsen Ronald David Laing (October 7, 1927–August 23, 1989), was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness and particularly the experience of psychosis. ... Kingsley Hall Kingsley Hall is a community centre in the East End of London. ...

While attending an environmental conference in Stockholm in 1972, Axel met Pratibha, whom he married in India. After returning to Sweden the couple lived in Vaxholm outside Stockholm where they bought an old freightship, built in 1905, which they renamed Shanti Devi. The ship was named after Pratibha's mother and means "The Goddess of Peace".   (IPA: ; UN/LOCODE: SE STO) is the capital of Sweden, and consequently the site of its Government and Parliament as well as the residence of the Swedish head of state, King Carl XVI Gustaf. ... Scenery from Vaxholm Vaxholm is a municipality of the Stockholm archipelago in central Sweden. ...   (IPA: ; UN/LOCODE: SE STO) is the capital of Sweden, and consequently the site of its Government and Parliament as well as the residence of the Swedish head of state, King Carl XVI Gustaf. ... 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Shanti Devi The name of the famous Norwegian author Axel Jensens sailing ship on which he and his Indian wife Pratibha lived for many years until 1990. ...

After restoring the ship with the help of good friends and its former crew, they finally set course for England in 1984. But due to a storm at sea they sought harbor in Oslo after a hazardous journey. Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... County Oslo NO-03 District Viken Municipality NO-0301 Administrative centre Oslo Mayor (2004) Per Ditlev-Simonsen (H) Official language form Neutral Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 224 454 km² 426 km² 0. ...

When Axel Jensen arrived in Oslo, he met his old friend, the writer Olav Angell. Together they wanted to transform Oslo into a city renowned for happenings on the scene of international literature. The plan was soon put into action, and Jensen became the front figure in a project which later developed into the Oslo International Poetry Festival, OIPF, occurring in 1985 and 1986. Protima Bedi at Oslo International Poetry Festival, OIPF 1985. ...

On the 10th of August 1990 Shanti Devi set course for its final destination in Ålefjær outside Kristiansand. There Axel and Pratibha settled in a hundred year old school-house, and some years later they sold their old ship. Shanti Devi The name of the famous Norwegian author Axel Jensens sailing ship on which he and his Indian wife Pratibha lived for many years until 1990. ... County Vest-Agder District Sørlandet Municipality NO-1001 Administrative centre Kristiansand Mayor (2004) Jan Oddvar Skisland (KrF) Official language form BokmÃ¥l Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 287 277 km² 259 km² 0. ...

In the last ten years of his life, Axel Jensen was severely disabled from ALS, amyotrophic lateral schlerosis. He gradually became paralyzed, losing all his motor-coordination abilities. Later, using a breathing-aid, he could neither write nor speak. During this period, he also led a tough campaign against what he termed "the health machinery" for the right to be nursed in his own home. Jensen wrote several essays and articles on this subject. Before the public health service provided the help he needed, private funding to pay for nursing was arranged by his close friends, including Leonard Cohen. His wife also used all of her available energy to nurse her husband until he drew his last breath in his home in Ålefjær. suck my mommas cock bitch ...

Writing style

Apart from his first symbolistic novel, Dyretemmerens Kors, Axel Jensen's early novels mostly depict a young man that attempt to break away from his social and cultural background. These novels include Icarus: A Young Man in Sahara (1957) (a new 1999 edition is illustrated by Franz Widerberg), A Girl I Knew (1959) and Joacim. Some critics have argued that these early novels are influenced by Beat-authors like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. The reason for this is that the novel's male main characters often try to escape from their obligations in a Western capitalistic society. Instead they try to replace their former life with some sort of undefined spiritualism and fail miserably in their attempt. Jack Kerouac (pronounced ) (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was an American novelist, writer, poet, artist, and part of the Beat Generation. ... Allen Ginsberg (left) with his lifelong companion, poet Peter Orlovsky Irwin Allen Ginsberg (IPA: ) (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American Beat poet born in Newark, New Jersey. ... William S. Burroughs. ... Capitalism generally refers to in philosophy and politics, a social system based on the principle of individual rights, including property rights. ...

Later Jensen departed from the realism in his early novels and began to move in a new direction by writing science fiction, poems, essays and manuscripts for cartoons. In this experimental phase he produced manuscripts for the psychedelic comic-strip Doctor Fantastic (published in the newspaper Dagbladet between March and July 1972), the science fiction comic strip collage Tago (1979), the animated movie Superfreak (1988) and a manuscript for a comic novel which is a caricature-rendering of the life of the French playwright and founder of pataphysics, Alfred Jarry. In the same period, Jensen also published a poem-collection with a hindu-theme called " Onalila - A Little East West poetry " (1974), an essayistic novel called Mother India (1974) and three autobiographical novels named Junior (1978) and Senior (1979) and Jumbo (1998). Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... The word psychedelic is a neologism coined from the Greek words for mind, ψυχη (psyche), and manifest, δηλειν (delein). ... Dagbladet is Norways third largest newspaper with a circulation of 191,164 copies in 2002. ... Pataphysics, an absurdist concept coined by the French writer Alfred Jarry, is the idea of a philosophy or science dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics. ... Alfred Jarry Alfred Jarry (September 8, 1873 – November 1, 1907) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mothers side. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

But Jensen is perhaps most famous for having written the science fiction novels Epp (1965), Lul (1992) and And the Rest is Written in the Stars (1995) illustrated by Pushwagner. With these novels, Jensen created a dystopian vision of the future, much in the tradition of Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury. Nevertheless, Jensen's novels also differ from these authors since the tragic vision in his novels is supplemented with comedy, setting an ambiguous and absurd tone. In this way, Jensen's novels are similar to the satirical and parodic novels of Jonathan Swift and Kurt Vonnegut. Pushwagner in front of Axel Jensens ship S/Y Shanti Devi. © 1983 Robert E. Haraldsen Epp painting by Pushwagner in the home of Axel Jensen © 2002 Robert E. Haraldsen. ... A dystopia (or alternatively cacotopia) is a fictional society, usually portrayed as existing in a future time, when the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation, oppression, or terror. ... Aldous Leonard Huxley (July 26, 1894 – November 22, 1963) was an English writer who emigrated to the United States, living in Los Angeles until his death in 1963. ... It has been suggested that Eileen OShaughnessy be merged into this article or section. ... Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22, 1920) is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer best known for The Martian Chronicles, a 1950 book which has been described both as a short story collection and a novel, and his 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451. ... Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745) was an Irish priest, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, and poet, famous for works like Gullivers Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, The Drapiers Letters, The Battle of the Books, and A Tale of a Tub. ... Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ...

Besides his fiction, Axel Jensen also published a series of articles and essays which focused on three main political and social issues. His collection of essays, God Does Not Read Novels. A Voyage in the World of Salman Rushdie (1994), is a critique of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and a defense of the freedom of speech. Another political text by Axel Jensen is the article " A Children's Disease ", published in the anthology The Collective Fairytale. A Book about Norway, Europe and the EU (1994). This article discusses Norway's role as a future member in the European Union. The third main issue that was of great concern of Axel Jensen, was how sick and disabled people are treated in a modern bureaucratic society. Two books containing articles on this subject was therefore published; The Deafening Silence (1997) and The Patient in the Centre (1998). All the articles are an account of how it is to suffer from ALS and at the same time not receive adequate help from the Norwegian welfare state. A fatwa (Arabic: ) plural fatāwa , is a legal pronouncement in Islam, issued by a religious law specialist on a specific issue. ... Salman Rushdie Salman Rushdie (born Ahmed Salman Rushdie, Urdu: , Hindi: on June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India) is a British-Indian essayist and author of fiction, most of which is set on the Indian subcontinent. ... Freedom of speech is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is granted formal recognition by the laws of most nations. ... suck my mommas cock bitch ... It has been suggested that Welfare capitalism be merged into this article or section. ...

Among his political writings, Jensen also found the time to write a biography on the mythical guru G. I. Gurdjieff which is titled Guru - Glimpses from the World of Gurdijieff (2002). In addition to this, Jensen was also the co-writer with Peter Mæjlender on his own autobiography, called Life Seen From Nimbus (2002). Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Георгий Иванович Гюрджиев, Georgiy Ivanovich Gyurdzhiev,Gurdjiev; January 13, 1872? – October 29, 1949), was a Greek-Armenian mystic and self-professed teacher of dancing. He claimed that the teachings he brought to the West from his own experiences and early travels expressed the truth found in other ancient religions and...

Axel Jensen received a literary prize from the Austrian Abraham Woursell Foundation in 1965 for his novel Epp. In 1992 Jensen was given the annual literary award from the Norwegian publishing house Cappelen for his novel Lul. For his essays on Salman Rushdie, he received the Carl von Ossietzky-award from the International PEN-club in 1994 and an award from The Freedom of Expression Foundation in Norway. Carl von Ossietzky Memorial, Berlin Carl von Ossietzky (Hamburg, October 3, 1889 – May 4, 1938 in Berlin) was a radical German pacifist and the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize. ... Logo of International PEN International PEN, the worldwide association of writers, was founded in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere; to emphasise the role of literature in the development of mutual understanding and world culture; to fight for freedom of expression; and to act as...

Bibliography

Novels

• 1955: Dyretemmerens kors
• 1957: Ikaros – ung mann i Sahara/Icarus - A Young Man in Sahara (a new edition illustrated by Frantz Widerberg at JM Stenersens Publishing 1999)
• 1959: Line/A Girl I Knew (Adapted into a movie 1961)
• 1961: Joacim
• 1965: Epp (new edition in 2002)
• 1974: Mor India /Mother India
• 1978: Junior
• 1979: Senior
• 1992: Lul
• 1995: Og resten står skrivd i stjernene/And the Rest is Writ(ten) in the Stars, illustrated by the artist Hariton Pushwagner
• 1998: Jumbo

Other works

• 1974: "Onalila – en liten østvestpoesi"/" Onalila - A Little East West Poetry "
• 1978: Blodsband, autobiografi, published in Sweden (translated by Jan Verner-Carlsson)
• 1979: Tago, science fiction-collage, drawings by Per Ekholm
• 1993: Trollmannen i Ålefjær (Axel Jensen on Axel Jensen) by Jan Christian Mollestad
• 1994: Det kollektive eventyr, «en bok om Norge, Europa og EU»/The Collective Fairytale.A Book about Norway,Europe and the EU, an anthology where Axel Jensen contributed with his article " A Children's Disease ".
• 1994: Gud leser ikke romaner.En vandring i Salman Rushdies verden/God Does Not Read Novels. A Journey in The World of Salman Rushdie, essay
• 1995: Doktor Fantastisk/Doctor Fantastic, comic strip, drawn by Tore Bernitz Pedersen
• 1997: Den øredøvende stillheten/The Deafening Silence, articles
• 1998: Pasienten i sentrum/The Patient in the Centre (Rapport fra Nimbus) og Pasienten i periferien, articles
• 1998: En mann for sin hatt: Alfred Jarry (1873–1907), illustrated by Per og Gisela Ekholm (Geelmuyden.Kiese Publishing)
• 2002: Livet sett fra Nimbus/Life Seen From Nimbus, autobiography in corporation with Petter Mejlænder (Spartacus Publishing)
• 2002: Guru – glimt fra Gurdjieffs verden/Guru - Glimpses From the World of Gurdijeff, in corporation with Eric Delanouë

External links

• Axel Jensen official website