Karna Birk Grønbech

1872 - 1957

Denmark

Karna Birk Grønbech wrote about her native region, was active in children’s education theory, psychiatry, mission work, and social and sexual hygiene, was born in a rural milieu on Bornholm, and married a farmer in 1888. Left alone with a son after her husband’s death in 1891, she moved to Copenhagen, trained as a schoolmistress, became a headmistress from 1900 to 1908 and co-founder of the teaching college Frøbelseminariet (National Institute of Early Childhood and Social Education).

Together with Jens Birk Kure, she published her debut work, the historical novel Ingrid Klo in 1907. Her debut work as an independent author was her novel Betula Sparre, 1926, a genealogical story from Bornholm, which, like her few later works, has change as a motif and a confusing, almost mad narrative.

Articles about her