Gerd Mjøen Brantenberg (born October 27, 1941) is a Norwegian author, teacher, and feminist writer.

Biography

Brantenberg was born in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

, but grew up in

Fredrikstad Fredrikstad (; previously ''Frederiksstad''; literally "Fredrik's Town") is a city and municipality in Viken county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Fredrikstad. The city of Fredrikstad was founded in 1 ...

. She studied English, History, and Sociology in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, and Oslo. She has an English hovedfag (main subject, comparable to a Master), from the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top univers ...

, where she also studied history and

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

. She worked as a

lector Lector is Latin for one who reads, whether aloud or not. In modern languages it takes various forms, as either a development or a loan, such as french: lecteur, en, lector, pl, lektor and russian: лектор. It has various specialized uses. ...

in Norwegian and Danish

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

s, and she also held positions at the trade union for lectors (Norsk Lektorlag) and the Norwegian Authors' Union. She worked from 1972 to 1983 in the Women's House in Oslo. She was a board member of the Norway's first association for homosexual people

Forbundet av 1948 The Norwegian Organisation for Sexual and Gender Diversity (Norwegian: ''FRI – foreningen for kjønns- og seksualitetsmangfold'') is the oldest, largest and preeminent Norwegian member organization representing the interests of gay, lesbian, bi ...

, the precursor to the Norwegian National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation. She has established

women's shelter A women's shelter, also known as a women's refuge and battered women's shelter, is a place of temporary protection and support for women escaping domestic violence and intimate partner violence of all forms. The term is also frequently used t ...

s and has worked in ''Lesbisk bevegelse'' (Lesbian movement) in both Oslo and

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. In 1978, she founded a literary Women's Forum with the purpose of encouraging women to write and publish. Since 1982, she has been a writer full-time. She has published 10 novels, 2 plays, 2 translations, and many political songs, and has contributed to numerous anthologies. Her most famous novel is '' Egalias døtre'' ("The Daughters of Egalia"), which was published in 1977 in Norway. In the novel, the female is defined as the normal and the male as the abnormal, subjugated sex. All words that are normally in masculine form are given in a feminine form, and vice versa. In the 1970s, Brantenberg was in a lesbian partnership with the Danish writer Vibeke Vasbo who joined her in Oslo in 1974. She is the cousin of radio and TV entertainer Lars Mjøen.

Awards and honours

She was awarded the

Mads Wiel Nygaards Endowment Mads Wiel Nygaard's Endowment is an annually awarded literary prize from the publishing house Aschehoug. The prize is a recognition of superior literary work. The publisher's editorial management makes the award based on their collective judgement ...

in 1983. In 1986 she was awarded the Danish literary prize "Thitprisen", named after the Danish author

Thit Jensen Maria Kirstine Dorothea Jensen (19 January 1876 – 14 May 1957) was a Danish novelist and author who wrote under the name Thit Jensen. She is known for her short stories, plays, and socially-critical articles. For her writing, Jensen was honore ...

Publications

Novels that have been published in English: * ''What Comes Naturally'' (London, 1986) * ''Egalia's Daughters'', (Seattle 1986) or ''The Daughters of Egalia'' (London 1985) * ''The Four Winds'' (Seattle, 1996).

References

External links

* http://skrift.no/brantenberg/ (Biography in Norwegian) * https://web.archive.org/web/20020224024416/http://www.dagbladet.no/kontekst/15753.html (Biography in ''Dagbladet'', Norwegian Newspaper) {{DEFAULTSORT:Brantenberg, Gerd 1941 births Living people Norwegian feminists Feminist writers Norwegian educators University of Oslo alumni Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Norwegian LGBT rights activists Lesbian feminists Lesbian writers Writers from Oslo People from Fredrikstad 20th-century Norwegian novelists 21st-century Norwegian novelists Norwegian women novelists Norwegian LGBT writers 21st-century Norwegian women writers 20th-century Norwegian women writers