Nan Bentzen Skille

Who is Nan Bentzen Skille?

Nan Bentzen Skille founder of The Sigrid Undset Society and author of the first biography in English of the Nobel Prize Laureate Sigrid Undset. Skille has a Masters in English Literature. She has been active as a promoter of the Norwegian author and Nobel Prize Laureate Sigrid Undset for many years, both through The Sigrid Undset Society, which she led for five years from its founding in 1997, as editor for the periodical Gymnadnia and as member of the council for the Norwegian Festival of Literature.

As a member of the Norwegian Festival of Literature council she became involved in the controversy over Holocaust denier David Irving, who was invited to speak at the 2009 festival. Nan Bentzen Skille publicly opposed the invitation after it was sent, but recommended that the Irving presentation be used to discuss critical issues it represented. She pointed out that Sigrid Undset had been critical of historians who locked into a view without thoughtfully considering opposing views and addressing them. Shortly after the controversy began, the invitation was withdrawn.

Skille presented Undset in the educational film series titled "Nordic Giants", and was project manager for the recording of Undset’s play for miniature theater Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne in 2001. She also coproduced the film Ei blott til lyst in 2006; the latter is an account of the miniature theatre which a group of Lillehammer artists created in the 1920s.