Background
He was born in Kragerø, and perished in a plane accident in 1946.
He was born in Kragerø, and perished in a plane accident in 1946.
Fangen was a journalist in the newspaper Verdens Gang from 1913. He made his literary debut in 1915 with the novel De svake ("The Weak"). In October 1934, Fangen took part in an Oxford Group house party, at the invitation of Carl Hambro President of the Norwegian Parliament, and a leading figure in the League of Nations.
Hambro invited 120 of his friends to meet Buchman and thirty companions at the Tourist Hotel at Høsbjør.
Garth Lean, Buchman’s biographer writes that: ‘Fangen, the novelist, brought two bottles of whisky and a crate of books, expecting boredom. He did not find time to open either.
His change was immediately visible and long remembered. lieutenant had however completely transformed Fangen, who before that, in his opinion, had been the most unpleasant man in Norway.’ He received Gyldendal"s Endowment in 1940.
Fangen was the first Norwegian writer to be arrested by the German occupants of Norway, in November 1940, due to an essay published in the periodical Kirke og Kultur.
Fangen was instrumental in the formation of the newspaper Vårt Land, which was secretly planned and founded during the occupation in 1944, but first issued in August 1945. Among biographers who have written about Fangen and his writings are Carl Fredrik Engelstad, Egil Yngvar Elseth, Reidar Huseby and January Inge Sørbø. Carl Fredrik Engelstad, Ronald Fangen: en mann og hans samtid, 1946 Egil Yngvar Elseth, Ronald Fangen.
Fra humanist til kristen, 1953 Bernt T. Oftestad, Kristentro og kulturansvar hos Ronald Fangen, 1981 Reidar Huseby (ed), Frihet, ansvar, tjeneste.
Ronald Fangens liv og visjon, 1995 January Inge Sørbø, Over dype svelg. Eit essay om Ronalds Fangens aktualitet, 1999 Stewart Doctorate Govig, Ronald Fangen: Church and Culture in Norway (2005.
Fangen was a member of the Oxford Group from 1934 and issued several religious publications in his later years.