Anna Munch née Dahl (4 August 1856 – 29 November 1932) was a Norwegian novelist and dramatist whose works address conflicts between the sexes, frequently based on her own experience of marriage and divorce. After a difficult relationship with her first husband Peter Munch, she met the much younger writer Sigurd Mathiesen whom she later married. Her early novel ''Kvinder. Et Stykke Udviklingshistorie. Kristiania-fortælling'' (Women. A Piece on Development History. Christiania Tale, 1892) is about women artists. Her principal work, the novel ''Glæde'' (Joy, 1904), presents a sensitive description of the utopian world of childhood.

Early life and education

Born on 4 August 1856 in the Vestre Aker (now a district of Oslo), Munch was the daughter of the physician Ludvig Vilhelm Dahl (1826–90) and his wife Anna Cathrine Lyders née Bonnevie (1835–93). She was the first of the family's 11 children, who included the artists

Cecilie Dahl Cecilie Dahl is an artist currently living and working in New York City and in Oslo, Norway. He was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1960. She grew up in Oslo and Accra, the capital city of Ghana. She has an M.A. in Fine Art from The Art Academy in Oslo ...

(1858–1943), Nils Alstrup Dahl (1876–1940), and Ingerid Dahl (1861–1944). She was raised in Christiania and Trondheim and experienced a difficult childhood subject to her father's view that women were less skilled than men. Munch completed her education at Nissens Pigeskole.

Career

After leaving her first husband in the 1890s, Munch devoted herself to writing. In her first novel, ''To mennesker'' (''Two People'', 1898), Munch describes her passionate love for the writer Knut Hamsun. Her second, ''Kvinder'' (1989), covers the contrasts for women between marriage and free love and presents the pleasures of the Bohemian way of life. Her later writing evokes contradictions between erotic love and platonic relationships which provide for lasting companionship. The theme is also central to her play ''Psyche'' (1893). Her most successful work, ''Glæde'' (1910), is a semi-autobiographical novel describing the experiences of Ester's now lost utopian childhood as she suffers the ordeals of later life.

Personal life

In 1883, Munch married Peter Anker Ragnvald Munch, an officer and teacher, with whom she had a daughter Signe. Due to his poor treatment of her, including refusing to provide her with paper on which she could write, she referred to him as a tyrant. She dissolved the marriage in the 1890s. In 1910, she married the writer Sigurd Mathiesen (1871–1958). After coping with difficult tines in

Stavern Stavern is a small water-side town in Larvik municipality in Vestfold County, Norway. It is south of the city of Larvik. Currently there are around 3,000 inhabitants in Stavern. It is a small town where tourism is one of the most important sou ...

, a small town in Norway, the couple moved to Denmark.Though the couple initially enjoyed a happy relationship, they slowly lost interest in each other. Munch died in Oslo on 29 November 1932.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Munch, Anna 1856 births 1932 deaths 19th-century Norwegian novelists 19th-century Norwegian women writers 20th-century Norwegian novelists 20th-century Norwegian women writers 19th-century Norwegian dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Norwegian dramatists and playwrights Writers from Trondheim