Description
Originally written in Danish, Barbara was the only novel written by the Faroese author Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen (1900-38), yet it quickly achieved international best-seller status and is still one of the best-loved classics of Danish and Faroese literature. On the face of it, Barbara is a straightforward historical romance: it contains a story of passion in an exotic selling with overtones of semi-piracy; there is a powerful erotic element, an outsider who breaks up a marriage, and a built-in inevitability resulting from Barbara’s own psychological make-up. She stands as one of the most complex female characters in modem Scandinavian literature: beautiful, passionate, devoted, amoral and uncomprehending of her own tragedy. Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen portrays her with fascinated devotion.
