Turèll, Dan

Danish novelist and poet who was something as unusual as a well-respected and genuinely popular cultural figure. He was born in Copenhagen as Dan Turèll-Jensen, the oldest of five siblings. When he was nine years old the family moved to the suburb of Vangede where he grew up. In connection with this, the family 1956 shortened the surname to Turèll. He learned to read before he started school, but showed little interest in schoolwork. He began to write about culture and politics for Socialist magazines at the beginning of the 1960s, and in 1966 he published his first book, the poetry collection Vibrationer, which he later disassociated himself from and never mentioned again.