Gunnar Reiss-Andersen

[2] He participated in the Norwegian resistance movement beginning in 1940 and during the early years of the Second World War, writing clandestinely distributed anti-war poetry to express opposition to the German occupation.

His contributions included several resistance-oriented collections of poetry including a collection written primarily in Norway titled Kampdikt fra Norge 1940-43 (“War Poetry from Norway 1940-43”) which was published in Stockholm in 1943 and Norsk røst (“Norwegian Voice of Conscience”) which was published in Stockholm in 1944.

His poetry written during the war, which had previously circulated illegally, was published in Norway as a collection in the spring of 1945, and enjoyed popularity.

[2] During his stay in Sweden, he was exposed to modernistic Swedish poetry and the influence of this genre became obvious in his post-war work.

[2] Reiss-Andersen was awarded the Norwegian state’s artist salary in 1945; this is a substantial recognition which had previously been awarded to well-recognized writers, poets, playwrights and composers including Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Grieg, Olav Duun and Johan Falkberget.