Kirsten Thorup, like her contemporaries Suzanne Brøgger and Dorrit Willumsen, has significantly influenced Danish literature since the 1960s through her female perspective. Thorup has developed from an experimental, modernist poet to a prose writer specializing in psychological realism. As an experimental writer she became a favorite of the critics; with her social and psychological novels she became popular with a wide circle of readers. Although Thorup uses realistic descriptions, her characters display imagination and often express a hope for change.

The author was born Kirsten Christensen in Gelsted, a small town on the island of Funen, on 2 February 1942 to Svend Christensen, a bookstore owner, and his wife, Jenny (née Jørgensen), a homemaker. She and her three brothers grew up in modest, petit-bourgeois circumstances in a provincial milieu, which she later described in the Jonna books. As a child Thorup was keenly aware...