Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was the eldest of five children. His father, Knud Ibsen, was a merchant. When he was 7, the family was thrown into poverty as his father was forced to auction all his business and properties.
At the age of 15, he left his home to study apothecary at Grimstad in order to earn a licence as a chemist to dispense medicines and drugs.
Almost at the same age, he started to write poems. In September 1849, he had his first poem entitled In the Autumn.
The next year his debut drama, Catiline, was published in Kristiania under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme.
He won international recognition with his play A Doll's House (1879), as the play exerted an enormous impact in the struggle for equal rights for women worldwide and is believably the most performed play in the world in modern times.
He wrote a total of 26 drama works.
Ibsen also took great interest in painting. When he died, he left behind him a great many works in the form of pictorial art: landscape paintings, cartoons, stage and costume sketches.
(China Daily August 22, 2006)
