Aase Hansen grew up in the provinces, graduated in Danish, German, and English in 1921, taught until 1932, and subsequently earned a living as an author and translator. She never married. Her debut novel Ebba Berings Studentertid, 1929, deals with the conflict between provincial and town life and the educated, modern woman’s problems with herself, her dreams, and the times in which she lives. En Kvinde kommer hjem, 1937, with its psychological realism and theme of a mother-daughter relationship, represents a pinnacle in her writing.
Frequently, the stories in her novels are told as stories mirroring a lover and a woman writer, such as in Drømmen om i gaar (N), 1939, and Skygger i et Spejl (N), 1951. The artist’s existence is sometimes interpreted as the opposite of erotic bliss, as in, for example, De røde Baand (N), 1943, and sometimes as reconciliation and explanation. A key theme is the loss of innocence, which is linked to the period of early youth and to the period before 1914. Her works have a melancholy tone and alternate between clarification, resignation, and resentment. Her memoirs Klip af et Billedark were published in 1973.
