Gerd Mjøen Brantenberg (born October 27, 1941) is aNorwegian author, teacher, andfeminist writer.
Brantenberg was born inOslo, but grew up inFredrikstad.[1] She studied English, History, and Sociology inLondon,Edinburgh, and Oslo. She has an Englishhovedfag (main subject, comparable to a Master), from theUniversity of Oslo, where she also studied history andpolitical science. She worked as alector in Norwegian and Danishhigh schools, and she also held positions at the trade union for lectors (Norsk Lektorlag) and theNorwegian 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 peopleForbundet av 1948, the precursor to theNorwegian National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation. She has establishedwomen's shelters and has worked inLesbisk bevegelse (Lesbian movement) in both Oslo andCopenhagen. In 1978, she founded a literary Women's Forum with the purpose of encouraging women to write and publish.[2]
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 isEgalias døtre ("The Daughters of Egalia"), which was published in 1977 in Norway.[3] In the novel, the female is defined as the normal and the male as the abnormal, subjugated sex.[4] All words that are normally in masculine form are given in a feminine form, and vice versa.[5]
In the 1970s, Brantenberg was in a lesbian partnership with the Danish writerVibeke Vasbo who joined her in Oslo in 1974.[6]
She is the cousin of radio and TV entertainerLars Mjøen.
She was awarded theMads Wiel Nygaards Endowment in 1983. In 1986 she was awarded the Danish literary prize "Thitprisen", named after the Danish authorThit Jensen.
Novels that have been published in English:
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