Johannes Jorgensen

Jens Johannes Jørgensen  was a Danish writer, best known for his biographies of Catholic saints. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times.

Johannes Jørgensen was born in 1866 in Svendborg, Denmark. In 1884, he travelled to Copenhagen to start his studies, but he quit his studies in 1888. In Copenhagen he began to develop radical social views, which soon led him into a circle of cultural and radical artists.

He was fascinated by the Russian nihilists and by Georg Brandes who boasted of dispelling "the darkness of Christianity." He led a life of pleasure and married, but his happiness did not last. New voices announcing spiritual values were then being heard in Denmark. Jørgensen read Joris-Karl Huysmans, Maurice Maeterlinck and others. He broke with Georg Brandes and his school, which would later cause his ruin.

In 1915 Johannes Jørgensen published the documentary novel Klokke Roland. In Denmark Klokke Roland went into 21 printings and the book was published in both French and English in 1916 (La Cloche Roland, False Witness). The book describes the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. This was, according to Jørgensen, a heinous act with bloody and cruel consequences for the Belgian people. The publication created outrage among the German authorities and led to diplomatic tensions between Denmark and Germany. Things escalated to a point where the Germans demanded legal action be brought against Jørgensen and the daily newspaper Politiken, which had published a positive review of the book. The case was a delicate one for Danish authorities, who went to great lengths not to provoke a German invasion.

After the war ended he returned to Assisi, but age was starting to weigh him down. In 1952 he moved back to Svendborg, where the city offered him free honorary residence in his childhood home of Lady Alley.

In 1913 he left his wife, Amalie F. Ewald and their seven children after an increasingly problematic marriage. As a Catholic he could not remarry, but when Amalie died in 1935, he married (in 1937) the Austrian-born Helen Klein.

He became an honorary citizen of Assisi 1922 and in Svendborg 1936 and dr. phil. hc ved Universitetet i Louvain 1927. Moreover, he was made Knight of the Dannebrog in 1920 and Commander of the 2nd grade 1926. degree 1926.

Johannes Jørgensen died on 29 May 1956, almost 90 years old. He was buried at the city cemetery.