Keeper of the Protocols

The Author: Joe Martin is a translator, playwright, theatre director, and essayist residing in Washington, D.C. He has lived in Norway, Sweden, and Canada where he took his MFA and his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. His translations from Norwegian, Swedish, and Spanish have been produced and published throughout the United States. Dr. Martin is a recipient of numerous grants and research awards from sources such as the American Scandinavian Foundation, the Swedish Institute, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and an N.E.A./Rockefeller Foundation New Forms grant. He is a professorial Lecturer in theatre and literature at the American University, and teaches dramatic literature at the Johns Hopkins University Masters in Drama Studies program.

"For those as yet unfamiliar with the extraordinary writings, novels, plays, essays, and poetry of Jens Bjørneboe, Joe Martin's 'Keeper of the Protocols' will come as an eye-opener. To those who know Bjørneboe already, their understanding will be enriched by this sophisticated yet beautifully accessible book. Bjørneboe's writings, as Martin shows, take us to the heart of concerns of this century, of inhumanity to men and women, and efforts to go beyond horror - efforts that finally carried Bjørneboe in 1976 to a place of such loneliness that suicide was the only answer. But his writings have a luminosity now finally beginning to penetrate the English-speaking world. Both we and Bjørneboe are in Joe Martin's debt." (John Fuegi, Author of Brecht & Co.)
"Joe Martin's comprehensive study of the work of Jens Bjørneboe makes a convincing case for Bjørneboe's place among that small company of twentieth-century authors who have dealt in fundamental, searching, and innovative ways, with the most profound moral and ethical questions of this troubled century. The philosophical depth and the technical novelty of Bjørneboe's novels and dramas entitle them to much greater international attention from the English-language community than they have so far received, and Martin's thoughtful introduction should encourage this significant project." (Professor Marvin Carlson, Graduate Center, City University of New York)