Johannes V. Jensen

Johannes Vilhelm Jensen was born on 20 January 1873 and started out writing pulp fiction before shifting to serious literature by the late 1890s. His early novels registered his disillusionment with large, modern cities. In 1933 he published The Fall of the King, a historical novel about King Christian II that doubled as an indictment of Danish indecision and lack of vitality — a condition Jensen believed had become a national disease. The Nobel committee in 1944 cited "the rare strength and fertility of his poetic imagination" combined with "an intellectual curiosity of wide scope and a bold,…