Ebba Hentze went to Denmark in 1947 for her upper secondary school education, despite strong objections. She studied languages and comparative literature in Scandinavia and Europe and has worked as a translator, a publishing assistant, and for Danish, Faroese, and Swedish radio. She has lived on the Faroe Islands since the mid-1970s.
Ebba Hentze made her debut with poems in Hvedekorn in 1953. In her novels Antonia og Morgenstjernen, 1981, Antonia midt i det hele, 1982, Bjørns søn, 1983, and Mia, skúlagenta i Havn, 1987, she describes the imaginary world of the child. The status of unmarried women in the family is the theme in “Kata, ein seinkaður nekrologur” (Kata, a late obituary), printed in the magazine Brá, 1984. The same magazine printed her short story “Juli”, 1986.
Ebba Hentze has translated a large number of English, American, German, Swedish, and Norwegian books into Danish – partly using a pseudonym – and has been very instrumental in bringing Faroese literature to readers abroad.
