The Modern Novel

Biography

Cora Sandel was born Sara Cecilia Görvell Fabricius in 1880 in Kristiana (now Oslo). When she was twelve, financial problems led the family to move to Tromsø, where her father worked as a naval officer. She started painting under the tutelage of Harriet Backer. In 1905 she moved to Paris to develop her painting skills. She met and married the Swedish sculptor Anders Jönsson. They moved to Sweden and later separated and divorced in 1926, the year her first novel – Alberte og Jakob (Alberta and Jacob) – was published. She had started writing short pieces while in France but went on to write the Alberta trilogy, for which she is famous. She continued to write but remained secluded, writing under a pseudonym and living in Sweden, only occasionally visiting Norway. She died in 1970.

Other links

Cora Sandel
Cora Sandel
Feminize Your Canon: Cora Sandel
Perspektivet Museum (museum in Tromsø devoted to her)
Cora Sandel (in Norwegian)