Poet, writer and teacher born in Imerissoq (Greenland) in 1918 – died in Aasiaat (Greenland) in 1981.
Ole Brandt, also known as Andreas Martin Ole Jakob Brandt, was born on October 22nd, 1918 in Imerissoq, in Greenland. He was the son of Jens Thomas Karl Brandt and Margrethe Kathrine Kristiane Frederiksen.
He finished his course to become a teacher at the Greenland Seminary (Ilinniarfissuaq) in Nuuk. He then continued his education in Denmark and went on to teach in several cities in Greenland, including Nuuk and Aasiaat. As a teacher, he co-authored the textbook Oqaasilerineq allattarissanik suliassartalik. Ilinniartitsisup atuagaa (1981; literally: “Language arts with writing exercises”) with Greenlandic author Hans Anthon Lynge.
From 1955 to 1959, Ole Brandt was a member of the Greenland National Council (Grønlands Landsråd). He also served as chair of the Greenlandic Writers’ Association (Kalaallit Atuakkiortut).
Ole Brandt, together with poets such as Aqqaluk Lynge, Malik Hoegh, and Ole Korneliussen, belonged to the generation of Greenlandic writers active between 1950 and 1975, a period of intensifying modernisation in Greenlandic society. He is the author of several books, including his best-known work, the series Qooqa, a Greenlandic family saga set in the 1700s. It includes the titles Qooqa. Oqaluttualiaq pisimasuinnik tunngavilik (1971; reissued in 1991), and Tugdluartoĸ (1973), reissued in two volumes in the same year: Tulluartoq I and Tugdluartoĸ II. The three volumes take their names from the characters and have recently been reissued by the Greenlandic publishing house Milik: Qooqa in 2018, and Tulluartoq I and Tulluartoq II in 2019. Ole Brandt is also the author of the book Ippiarsuup imai I, first published in 1981 and reissued in 1984 and 1995. Several of Ole Brandt's books have been read on the airwaves of the Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation (Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa, KNR). In 1978, Ole Brandt coauthored a Greenlandic grammar textbook with Hans Anthon Lynge, which was reprinted several times, until the early 1990s. In 2020, Milik reissued his book Taseraq Pingajuallu, originally published in 1989 under the title Taseraq Pingajuallu: Kinguaariit Qooqakkormiut oqaluttuarisaanerata naggataa.
Ole Brandt is considered by the Greenlandic critic Christian Berthelsen to be the Greenlandic author who most eloquently recounted to his contemporaries the free and independent way of life of the early Greenlanders. A street is named in his honour in Nuuk.
Ole Brandt died on June 24th, 1981 at the age of 62. He is buried in Aasiaat.