Pipaluk Freuchen (15 March 1918 – 8 April 1999) was a Danish-Greenlandic-Swedish writer, best known for her children's book Ivik, den faderløse, which is also known by its English title Eskimo Boy. She was also the daughter of the explorer Peter Freuchen.

Pipaluk Freuchen
Portrait by Ingrid Vang Nyman Arktisk Institut
Portrait by Ingrid Vang Nyman
Arktisk Institut
BornPipaluk Jette Tukuminguaq Kasaluk Palika Freuchen
15 March 1918
Uummannaq, Greenland
Died8 April 1999(1999-04-08) (aged 81)
Nykøbing Falster, Denmark
OccupationWriter
Notable worksIvik, den faderløse

Early life

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Pipaluk Jette Tukuminguaq Kasaluk Palika Freuchen was born on 15 March 1918 in Uummannaq, Greenland.[1][2] Her father was the Danish Arctic explorer and adventurer Peter Freuchen, her mother, Navarana Mequpaluk, a Greenlandic Inuit woman whom he married in 1911.[3] They had two children, Mequsaq (born 1915) and Pipaluk.[4] In a 1945 article in the Swedish-American newspaper Vestkusten, Freuchen recalled living a traditional Inuit lifestyle.[5] In 1919 the family moved to Denmark, but returned to Greenland two years later,[6] leaving Freuchen with her father's parents in Denmark.[7]: 354  Her mother died in 1921 from influenza.[3][8] Freuchen was brought up as part of the Lauridsen family after her father married Magdalene Lauridsen in 1924.[9] Peter Freuchen wrote about their lives together in Arctic Adventure: My Life in the Frozen North (1935).[10]

In 1944 Freuchen fled from Nazi occupied Denmark to Sweden with her father[6] and married Bengt Häger [sv], a Swedish choreographer and academic. They had a daughter named Navarana.[11][12] She returned to her father's home town of Nykøbing Falster in Denmark in 1952.[13] Häger remarried in 1954.[12]

Writing

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Freuchen's wrote Ivik: den faderløse ("Ivik the Fatherless") in Danish and it has been translated into several languages, including English as Eskimo Boy,[2] and German as Ivik der Vaterlose.[14] It was published in Sweden as part of the Robinson Series for children aged nine to eleven by Geber Förlag [sv].[15] In the book, Ivik's father is killed by a walrus on a hunting trip and Ivik has to save his family from starvation.[16][17] Ivik ultimately ends up killing a polar bear.[18] The book was noted in an Association on American Indian Affairs bibliography for its "unrelenting realism".[19][20][21] Reviewing the book, the Lexington Herald described it as "permeated with the spirit of Eskimo culture",[22] while the Manchester Guardian described the book as "a little masterpiece of writing".[23] The Swedish edition was illustrated by Freuchen's step-cousin Ingrid Vang Nyman,[24][9][25] who was living in Sweden and had illustrated Freuchen's story Julafton bland eskimåer (Christmas Eve among Eskimos) for Dagens Nyheter in 1944.[26]

Inaluk, her second book, about a Greenlandic girl going to school in Denmark, was published in a Swedish translation. The Swedish library magazine Biblioteksbladet was disappointed and described it as "a completely ordinary girl's book" and the central character as "grossly idealised".[27]

Freuchen also worked as a journalist and travelled with her father.[13]

Later life

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Freuchen died on 8 April 1999.[2]

Books

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  • Ivik, den faderløse (Arthur Jensens Forlag, 1944),[28] English translation Eskimo Boy (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1951)[29]
  • Inaluk (Almqvist & Wiksell/Geber Förlag, 1954)[30]
  • Bogen om Peter Freuchen (Editor, Forlaget Fremad, 1958)[31]

References

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  1. ^ "Pipaluk Freuchen". Key Documents of German-Jewish History. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Leppälahti, Merja (12 October 2020). Kirjallinen nimipäiväkalenteri (in Finnish). BoD – Books on Demand. p. 335. ISBN 978-952-7211-53-3.
  3. ^ a b Thompson, Lawrence S. (1958). "The $64,000 Quiz Winner". Books Abroad. 32 (1): 14–16. doi:10.2307/40099228. ISSN 0006-7431. JSTOR 40099228.
  4. ^ Nuttall, Mark (23 September 2005). "Peter Freuchen". Encyclopedia of the Arctic. Taylor & Francis. pp. 682–684. ISBN 9781136786808.
  5. ^ Freuchen, Pipaluk (2 August 1945). "Att vara barn på Grönland" [Being a child in Greenland]. Vestkusten (in Swedish). Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  6. ^ a b Bjørnsson, Iben (3 November 2016). "Peter Freuchen's Beard" (PDF). The Arctic Journal.
  7. ^ Freuchen, Peter (1935). Arctic Adventure My Life In The Frozen North. New York, Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart.
  8. ^ Harper, Kenn (10 July 2021). "A rocky start to the Fifth Thule Expedition". Nunatsiaq News. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  9. ^ a b Nielsen, Teresa. "Polarforskeren Peter Freuchen" [Polar researcher Peter Freuchen]. Vejen Art Museum (in Danish). Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  10. ^ M. A. S. (May 1937). "Review: Arctic Adventure: My Life in the Frozen North by Peter Freuchen". The Geographical Journal. 89 (5): 477–478. doi:10.2307/1786434. JSTOR 1786434.
  11. ^ Andreassen, Janni (30 June 2015). Altid frimodig: Biografi om polarforskeren, forfatteren og eventyreren Peter Freuchen (in Danish). Gyldendal A/S. ISBN 978-87-02-18590-4.
  12. ^ a b Harjanne, Satu Mariia (2011). "En odlare av dansfälten" [A cultivator of the field of dance]. Danstidningen (in Swedish). No. 6/2011. pp. 40–42.
  13. ^ a b "Dödsfall utlandet". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). 15 April 1999. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  14. ^ Nordeuropa (in German). Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität. 1966.
  15. ^ Ehriander, Helene (2021). "Nubban and Pippi". In Ehriander, Helene (ed.). Astrid Lindgren's Works (PDF). Linnæus University Press. p. 71. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  16. ^ Lines, Kathleen M. (9 April 2015). Four to Fourteen. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-49779-5.
  17. ^ Evans, Pauline Rush (1956). The Family Treasury of Children's Stories. Doubleday. p. 314.
  18. ^ "Book Reviews: Eskimo Boy". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  19. ^ American Indian Authors for Young Readers: A Selected Bibliography. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. 1978. p. 15.
  20. ^ Committee, American Library Association Children's Services Division Book Reevaluation; Livsey, Rosemary E. (1966). Notable Children's Books, 1940–1959. American Library Association. p. 15.
  21. ^ Lindquist, Tarry (1995). Seeing the Whole Through Social Studies. Pearson Education. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-435-08902-3.
  22. ^ "'Different Book For Children' Tells About Fatherless Eskimo". The Lexington Herald. 20 April 1952. p. 47. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  23. ^ Brisbane, Pamela (6 July 1956). "For The Child's Shelf". The Guardian. p. 4. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  24. ^ Lines, Kathleen M. (9 April 2015). Four to Fourteen. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-49779-5.
  25. ^ tygertale (5 April 2019). "Ingrid Vang Nyman's Inuit Summer". Tyger Tale. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  26. ^ Ehriander, Helene. "Ingrid Vang Nyman". Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  27. ^ "Barn- och Ungdomslitteratur" [Children's and young people's literature]. Biblioteksbladet (in Swedish). Vol. 41. P. A. Norstedt & Söner. 1957. p. 194.
  28. ^ Hertel, Hans (1987). Fremad: arbejderbevægelsens forlag 1912–1987. Forlaget Fremad. p. 118. ISBN 9788755713802.
  29. ^ Reviews for Eskimo Boy:
  30. ^ Freuchen, Pipaluk (1954). Inaluk (in Swedish). Söderström.
  31. ^ Freuchen, Pipaluk (1958). Bogen om Peter Freuchen (in Danish). Forlaget Fremad.
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