Literature Network » Hans Christian Andersen

World honours a great Dane; Denmark's official bicentenary celebrations of Hans Christian Andersen are launched in Birmingham tomorrow with the premiere of a new piece by leading Danish composer Per Norgard Terry Grimley looks at Andersen's own ra

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From: The Birmingham Post (England)
Date: 20050401
Author:

Byline: Terry Grimley

Denmark's most internationally renowned citizen was born 200 years ago tomorrow into a life of desperate poverty.

The exact place in the town of Odense where Hans Christian Andersen first saw the light of day is unknown, because his parents, a shoemaker and a washerwoman, did not have a permanent address until two years later. For an author who was to give the world some of its classic images of imagination triumphing over poverty and adversity, it could hardly have been better.

Odense, where Andersen's notional birthplace and childhood home is ...

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