Published in 1969, ‘Anna, I, Anna’ (Danish: Anna, jeg, Anna) is a novel by Danish author Klaus Rifbjerg that won the ‘Nordic Council Literature Prize’ in 1970 and tells the story (in first person) about a diplomat’s wife who has to go home to receive psychiatric treatment for severe obsessive compulsive neurosis. On the plane, she meets a hippie who is also heading home, escorted by the police: they flee together, and somehow she finds her own inner self in the Bohemian settings and social degradation. She, and the world surrounding her, appear as ever-changing multifaceted patchworks, and the novel anticipates a post-modern view of humans and their lives. Klaus Rifbjerg has been active for more than 50 years, releasing several titles in a wide variety of genres (novels, children’s books, short stories, TV manuscripts, poems, plays, essays, travel books). His limitless fantasy and disrespect for various rules and perceptions of the world are his trademark features. The Adjudicating Committee judged ‘Anna (I) Anna’ "a psychological life-study of a modern woman, created with empathy and rich imaginative language, which reflects the social and moral crises in bourgeois society."
