Anna Munch

{{Short description|Norwegian novelist and dramatist (1856–1932)}}

{{Infobox author | death_date = {{death date and age|1932|11|29|1856|08|04|df=y}} | occupation = Novelist and dramatist | image = Anna Dahl (later Munch) - painting by Cecilie Dahl 1877.jpg | caption = Portrait of Anna Dahl by her sister [[Cecilie Dahl (born 1858)|Cecilie]] (1877) | birth_date = 4 August 1856 | relatives = [[Cecilie Dahl (born 1858)|Cecilie Dahl]] (sister) | alma_mater = [[Nissens Pigeskole]] | spouse = {{plainlist| *Peter Anker Ragnvald Munch (m. 1883) *Sigurd Mathiesen (m. 1910) }} | children = 1 | death_place = Oslo, Norway | birth_place = [[Oslo|Christiania]], Norway | birth_name = Anna Dahl }}

'''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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://nordicwomensliterature.net/writers/munch-anna/|title=Anna Munch|publisher=Nordic Women's Literature|accessdate=3 July 2023|language=|archive-date=3 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703133814/https://nordicwomensliterature.net/writers/munch-anna/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="ebk">{{cite web|url=https://snl.no/Anna_Munch|title=Anna Munch|publisher=Store Norske Leksikon|author=Bjerck Hagen, Erik|accessdate=3 July 2023|language=no|archive-date=27 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230327094635/https://snl.no/Anna_Munch|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="nbl">{{cite web|url=https://nbl.snl.no/Anna_Munch|title=Anna Munch|publisher=Norsk Biografisk Leksikon|author=Aasen, Elisabeth|accessdate=3 July 2023|language=no|archive-date=10 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180710164910/https://nbl.snl.no/Anna_Munch|url-status=live}}</ref>

==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 (born 1858)|Cecilie Dahl]] (1858–1943), Nils Alstrup Dahl (1876–1940), and Ingerid Dahl (1861–1944).<ref name="nbl" /><ref>{{cite web|url=https://histreg.no/index.php/person/pf01052039012335|title= Anna Dahl Munch, f. Dahl |publisher=Historisk befolkningsregister|accessdate=3 July 2023 |language=no}}</ref> 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.{{Cn|date=August 2023}}

Munch completed her education at [[Hartvig Nissen School|Nissens Pigeskole]].{{Cn|date=August 2023}}

==Career== After leaving her first husband in the 1890s, Munch devoted herself to writing.<ref name="nbl" />

In her first novel, ''To mennesker'' (''Two People'', 1898), Munch describes her passionate love for the writer [[Knut Hamsun]].<ref name=ebk/> 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).<ref name=nbl/><ref name=abr>{{cite web|url=https://nordicwomensliterature.net/2011/12/16/the-bohemian-as-woman/|title=The Bohemian as Woman|publisher=Nordic Women's Literature|author=Rønning, Anne Brigitte|date=16 December 2011|accessdate=4 July 2023|language=|archive-date=4 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230704085754/https://nordicwomensliterature.net/2011/12/16/the-bohemian-as-woman/|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref name=abr/>

==Personal life== In 1883, Munch married Peter Anker Ragnvald Munch, an officer and teacher, with whom she had a daughter Signe.<ref>{{cite web |title=Peter Anker Ragnvald Munch |url=https://histreg.no/index.php/person/pd00000005663275 |accessdate=3 July 2023 |publisher=Historisk befolkningsregister |language=no}}</ref> 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.{{Cn|date=August 2023}} She dissolved the marriage in the 1890s.{{Cn|date=August 2023}}

In 1910, she married the writer Sigurd Mathiesen (1871–1958).<ref name="nbl" /> After coping with difficult tines in [[Stavern]], 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.<ref name="nbl" />

Munch died in Oslo on 29 November 1932.<ref name="nbl" />

==References== {{Reflist}}

[[Category:1856 births]] [[Category:1932 deaths]] [[Category:19th-century Norwegian novelists]] [[Category:19th-century Norwegian women writers]] [[Category:20th-century Norwegian novelists]] [[Category:20th-century Norwegian women writers]] [[Category:19th-century Norwegian dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:20th-century Norwegian dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:Writers from Trondheim]]