Some Facts
He is called "the father of modern drama" because his extremely influential plays dealing with domestic life dealt with some of the most shocking issues of the day - venereal disease, a wife abandoning her husband and children to discover her own worth as a human being, suicide, etc. He also wrote a few verse dramas, among them "Peer Gynt". However, Edvard Grieg's music for the original 1876 production is now performed much more often than is the play.
On December 23rd 1859 his son Sigurd was born.
Not only is he considered the father of modern drama, but his grandson Tancred Ibsen, would grow up to be perhaps the greatest Norwegian of his generation in the modern art of movie-making...
Dubbed one of "the four greats" (de fire store) in Norwegian literature, together with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Alexander Kielland and Jonas Lie.
His play, "Hedda Gabler" at the Writers Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for a 2014 Joseph Jefferson Equity Award for Large Play Production.