30 Facts About Axel Jensen

Axel 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.

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

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

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

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

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

Axel 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.

In 1957 Axel 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.

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 Axel Jensen introduced her to another young woman at the Theatre Cafe in Oslo and informed Ihlen that there would be no trip to Greece as he was leaving tomorrow with the other woman for Egypt.

Axel 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.

On one of these trips Axel Jensen met a woman named Sonja and became besotted with her after five days of acquaintance.

Axel Jensen subsequently found work as a cook on a chartered schooner, by the end of which Ihlen returned to stay with Per and Else Berit in Athens, who observed that the experience had transformed her into a serene and more confident person.

Meanwhile, Axel Jensen had been on a six-week-long drinking binge, as he had purchased a ticket for Sonja to travel to join him in Greece, only to find that she had sold the ticket and kept the money.

Axel Jensen immediately asked her to marry him and she accepted.

The couple's son Axel Jensen Joachim was born on 21 January 1960 in Oslo.

Axel Jensen struggled with the situation and three days later telegrammed Ihlen asking for her help.

Axel Jensen allowed Ihlen to live in the house on Hydra and following their formal divorce a year later transferred ownership to her and their son.

Axel Jensen Joachim lived with his mother and for most of his childhood had little contact with his father, Cohen becoming his surrogate father, even to the extent of paying for his boarding schools in England and Switzerland as well as his flights.

At the age of 15 Axel Joachim was taken on a trip to India by Jensen and given LSD by his father.

Axel Jensen eventually returned to Norway and by 1966 had settled in Fredrikstad.

Axel Jensen had a son and a daughter from a previous marriage.

The plan was put into action, and Axel Jensen became the front figure in a project which later developed into the Oslo International Poetry Festival, occurring in 1985 and 1986.

Axel Jensen gradually became paralyzed, losing all his motor-coordination abilities.

Later, Axel 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.

Axel Jensen is perhaps most famous for having written the science fiction novels Epp, Lul, and And the Rest is Written in the Stars, illustrated by Pushwagner.

Nevertheless, Axel Jensen's novels differ from these authors since the tragic vision in his novels is supplemented with comedy, setting an ambiguous and absurd tone.

Besides his fiction, Axel Jensen published a series of articles and essays which focused on three main political and social issues.

Axel Jensen received a literary prize from the Austrian Abraham Woursell Foundation in 1965 for his novel Epp.

In 1992, Axel Jensen was given the annual literary award from the Norwegian publishing house Cappelen for his novel Lul.