Axel Jensen

Axel Buchardt Jensen (12 February 1932 – 13 February 2003) was a Norwegian author.

Jensen was born on 12 February 1932 in Trondheim to Dagny Teodora (née Buchardt, 1908- 2000) and Finn Reidar Jensen (1901-1967).

His father owned a sausage factory, Axel Jensens fabrikker, in Oslo.

His parents later divorced.

His father's second marriage produced two sons.

Jensen completed three years of high school but only lasted a couple of days at university as he didn't like the quiet polite lectures and so gave it up.

He then undertook a number of labouring jobs, while writing in his spare time.

He managed to get some stories published in the Aftenposten newspaper, but most of the short stories he submitted to journals and magazines were rejected.

In the early 1950s he went travelling in Northern Africa, during which time he met John Starr Cooke in the Sahara and went on to become a friend.

In 1954 Jensen flagged down a car on Majorstua Street in Oslo containing 19 year old Marianne Ihlen and invited her to a party.

Jensen subsequently telephoned her and they met up in Dovrehallen, a student pub at which they committed to a relationship.

Jensen took whatever work he could find to support himself as he wrote short stories for newspapers and magazines.

In 1955 Jensen self-published his first book, the surrealist Dyretemmerens kors, but he later burned the remaining unsold books.

Niels Christian Brogger's review in the 12 December 1955 edition of the Nationen newspaper commented:

"Axel Jensen does not write for a popular audience, and his mystical language will probably not be understood or appreciated by many. But considered as an experiment the book is interesting, and it is a pleasure to meet a young author who is not following the herd."

In that same year he and Ihlen travelled to Copenhagen to meet John Starr Cooke who was ill in a hospital with suspected malaria.

Ihlen frequently clashed with her father over Jensen, as he thought that Jensen who came from a broken home lacked a good education, a job and a place of his own to live, unlike the children of his middle class friends and acquaintances.

Jensen was aggressive when he became drunk and at one party pushed his way into the room where Ihlen was sleeping and made her watch as he took a knife, spread his hand out on a kitchen table and stabbed it three times.

From 1957 until 2002, he published both fiction and non-fiction texts which include novels, poems, essays, a biography, and manuscripts for cartoons and animated films.

In 1957 Jensen was called up to undertake his compulsory military service but upon reporting for duty was able to talk his way out of completing it.

In 1957 Jensen's novel Ikaros – ung mann i Sahara (Icarus – A Young Man in Sahara) was published by Henrik Groth of Cappelen (with an initial print run of 6,000).

It described quest for experience of a young man as he journeyed across the Sahara.

It was reviewed by over 30 Norwegian newspapers and highly praised by a number of literary critics with Kjøv Egelund of the Vinduet magazine commenting that "Here is one of the year's most sensational works of fiction. Sumptuously rich, brightly talented, fascinating.

Ihlen thought they had a committed relationship with long held plans to travel to Greece but later that same year one evening out of the blue Jensen introduced her to another young woman at the Theatre Café in Oslo and informed Ihlen that there would be no trip to Greece as he was leaving tomorrow with the other woman for Egypt.

Ihlen stormed out and made her way in a stage of shock back to where she is staying only to be woken at 4 o'clock by Jensen at the doorstep saying, "We're going to Greece! It's you I want to travel with!"

In mid-November the reunited couple over her parents' objections departed by train for Greece with plans to be away for a year, with Jensen intending to spend the time writing.

Disembarking from the train in Hamburg they purchased a second-hand Volkswagen Beetle.

Driving south they visited Venice and Rome before passing through Yugoslavia into Greece.

On the way south from Thessaloniki Ihlen was forced to have an emergency operation for appendicitis in the village of Lamia.

Ihlen remained in hospital for a week recovering and it wasn't until December that they reached Athens where they stayed with their friends Per and Else Berit who had moved there the year before.

Jensen had originally intended that they rent an apartment in Athens, but their friends suggested they could live more cheaply on the island of Hydra, which was three hours away by ferry.

After visiting Delphi the couple drove down to Erminoni in the Peloponnese where their landlady at the place they stayed allowed them to park their car in her garden.

It was from here that they took a ferry to Hydra.

After initially renting Jensen used part of an advance of 40,000 kroner (approximately US$6,000) that he had received from Groth as an advance for his next book to purchase a house on Kala Pigadia Street for approximately US$2,500 on Hydra.

After making repairs to the house the couple were left with just over US$2,000 on which to live on until Jensen's next book was published, with the house offered as security for one year's line of credit at a local grocery store.

The house was simple, with an outside toilet and electricity for only one hour in the evening and one hour in the morning.

Otherwise, they used paraffin lamps.

The couple soon became a component part of the foreign community on the island and friends with Charmian Clift and her husband George Johnston.

Some months later the Swedish writer Göran Tunström arrived on the island and rented a house close by, becoming a friend.

Ihlen remained on Hydra when it was necessary for Jensen to travel back several times to Norway to capitalize on the success of Ikaros – ung mann i Sahara.