Rifbjerg, Klaus (1931– )

Danish novelist, poet, and dramatist. He is a versatile and productive writer, primarily a modernist. His works include the poetry collection Konfrontation (1960) and the novels Den kroniske uskyld/Chronic Innocence (1958), Operaelskeren/The Opera Lover (1966), and De hellige aber/The Sacred Monkeys (1981), a political fantasy.

Rifbjerg was born in Copenhagen. He breaks new ground in both vocabulary and syntax, in using stark language to reflect childhood experience and the materialistic world. Den kroniske uskyld is an illusionless portrayal of schoolboy love, written in the jargon of the 1950s. Operaelskeren describes the adventures of a professor of mathematics who sees the whole of life in terms of calculations.