So Many Kinds of Love
Høst, Gerd: Så mange slags kjærlighet. Med Ellinor Hamsun i Berlin 1937-39Full title: So Many Kinds of Love. With Elinor Hamsun in Berlin 1937-39
Knut Hamsun’s daughter Ellinor had a difficult life. Having been sent away from her childhood home at an early age, she became a restless soul, seeking safety wherever she could. In the years before and during World War 1, she trained to become an actress in Berlin. In 1937, she met Gerd Høst, and the two became close friends. It was a hectic and fascinating period featuring circles of intellectuals and artists whom Hitler never managed to subdue. But these were also dark times, the brutal reality of the war gradually imposing itself upon the inhabitants of Berlin.
In this book Gerd Høst paints a warm and emotional portrait of the beautiful and talented Ellinor Hamsun, who was facing a promising future as an actress, but who also struggled with homesickness and serious eating disorders. With a fair amount of anger, the author shows how Ellinor, whose highest desire was that "those at home" be proud of her, had her life ruined. She ended her life lobotomised in a remote nursing home in Denmark, abandoned by everyone, also by the man she loved.
First published: 2004, Aschehoug Non-Fiction
Gerd Høst: Biography and bibliography
