ABSTRACT
Brogger stepped into the international limelight with her work Fri os ira kserligheden (1973; Deliver Us from Love), a highly polemical and controversial critique of western mores which was translated into more than seven languages. Mingling essays, short stories, and slice-of-life accounts of personal experiences, Brogger called into question a number of assumptions about western values such as the nuclear family, privacy, and the incest taboo. Although Fri os ira kaerligheden was subtitled "A radical feminist speaks out" in one of its English editions, Br0gger denies this connection. Indeed, she often takes feminists to task for accepting and working within patriarchal structures instead of trying to break free of them and forge new ways of living. She is particularly contemptuous of the monogamous couple unit that is considered the ideal social arrangement in western society, finding it too stifling. "What there will be a need for in future is not specialization, but generalization: to be able to love more than one person, more than one race, more than one sex-and not merely a single representative of the opposite sex," she has asserted. She continued to write in the same vein in her next published book, Kserlighedens veje og
vildveje (1975; The Right and Wrong Ways of Love). In her autobiographical works, Crème fraîche
(1978; Fresh Cream) andja (1979; Yes), Brogger writes frankly about her own sexual relationships, continuing to protest against exclusive forms of love to promote her own somewhat Utopian ideal of universal love. Despite reservations about Bragger's brand of utopianism, Danish critics consider these two works her best; Jens Kistrup goes so far as to call Crème fraîche one of the major works of contemporary Danish literature.
