Axel Buchardt Jensen (12 February 1932 – 13 February 2003) was a Norwegian author. From 1957 until 2002, he published both fiction and non-fiction texts which include novels, poems, essays, a biography, and manuscripts for cartoons and animated films. Biography Jensen was born on 12 February 1932 in Trondheim to Dagny Teodora (née Buchardt, 1908- 2000) and Finn Reidar Jensen (1901-1967). His father owned a sausage factory, Axel Jensens fabrikker, in Oslo. His parents later divorced. His father's second marriage produced two sons. Jensen completed three years of high school but only lasted a couple of days at university as he didn't like the quiet polite lectures and so gave it up. He then undertook a number of labouring jobs, while writing in his spare time. He managed to get some stories published in the Aftenposten newspaper, but most of the short stories he submitted to journals and magazines were rejected. In the early 1950s he went travelling in Northern Africa, during which time he met John Starr Cooke in the Sahara and went on to become a friend. Meets Marianne Ihlen In 1954 Jensen flagged down a car on Majorstua Street in Oslo containing 19 year old Marianne Ihlen and invited her to a party. Jensen subsequently telephoned her and they met up in Dovrehallen, a student pub at which they committed to a relationship. Jensen took whatever work he could find to support himself as he wrote short stories for newspapers and magazines. In 1955 Jensen self-published his first book, the surrealist Dyretemmerens kors, but he later burned the remaining unsold books. Niels Christian Brogger's review in the 12 December 1955 edition of the Nationen newspaper commented: In that same year he and Ihlen travelled to Copenhagen to meet John Starr Cooke who was ill in a hospital with suspected malaria. Ihlen frequently clashed with her father over Jensen, as he thought that Jensen who came from a broken home lacked a good education, a job and a place of his own to live, unlike the children of his middle class friends and acquaintances. Jensen was aggressive when he became drunk and at one party pushed his way into the room where Ihlen was sleeping and made her watch as he took a knife, spread his hand out on a kitchen table and stabbed it three times. In 1957 Jensen was called up to undertake his compulsory military