Sonja Hauberg (1918–1947)

Sonja Hauberg spent her early childhood on a farm in North Zealand, Denmark, but then moved with her family to a suburb of Copenhagen. She studied comparative literature at Copenhagen University and published poems, short stories and sketches. She was part of the circle attached to the literary magazine Vild Hvede and joined the literary group known as Unge Kunstneres (Young Kunstneres) along with Tove Ditlevsen, Morten Nielsen, and Piet Hein. In 1942, published her debut novel Hvad vil du mig? (What Do You Want?), followed two years later by Syv Aar for Lea (Seven Years for Leah), for which she received the Kunstnerpris. After a short-lived first marriage, in 1945 she married Richard Mortensen, an artist with whom she had a son. She died in 1947 at age 29 of typhus, a disease she contracted in Finland while attending a writers' congress. She left behind the experimental and symbolic novel April, which was first published in 1961. Her son Finn Hauberg Mortensen became a professor of literature and wrote about his mother in Danske Digtere i det 20. århundrede (Danish Poets of the 20th Century), published in 1981.