10 February 2005

HAMBURG - Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen was gay but may never have acted on his homosexual tendencies, according to a new biography published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Andersen's birth.

Author Jens Andersen, author of the book which has just been published in Germany, says the author fell in love with both men and women, though he may well have remained a virgin all his life.

The book, which will be published in English in April, states that Andersen had infatuations with both men and women but could not bring himself to overcome societal strictures against homosexuality even if he could not bring himself to marry a woman.

In modern parlance, "he was just not that into girls", according to the author.

In an almost Freudian manner, Andersen channeled his sexual energies into his writing, creating some of the finest fairy-tale fiction ever written.

He fictionalized his biography as a wonderful fairy tale, even naming his autobiography "The Fairy Tale of My Life".

His own life read like a fairy tale. He was born 2 April 1805, in Odense, the son of a poor shoemaker and an illiterate laundry woman.

Like "The Ugly Duckling", he was an eccentric boy who was teased merciless by other children for being odd-looking and awkward and for wearing hand-me-downs.

At age 14 he moved to Copenhagen in hopes of finding other misfits like himself. He succeeded beyond his dreams, winning the hearts of leading bourgeois families, who sponsored his education.

Andersen finished his secondary schooling in 1828 and determinedly set about establishing himself as a writer. He published his first novel within a year and was soon on his way to fame, churning out novels, travel books, dramas, autobiographies and poetry.

Firmly established as a Danish man of letters, he turned his talents to fairy tales in 1837, he began writing the fairy tales that won him international fame and access to the royal houses and cultural elites of Europe.

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