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Martin Andersen Nexø | |
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 Nexø in the 1950s | |
| Born | (1869-06-26)26 June 1869 Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Died | 1 June 1954(1954-06-01) (aged 84) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Danish |
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Martin Andersen Nexø (26 June 1869 – 1 June 1954) was a Danish writer. He was one of the authors in theModern Breakthrough movement in Danish art and literature. He was asocialist throughout his life and during theSecond World War moved to the Soviet Union, and afterwards to Dresden in East Germany.
Martin Andersen Nexø was born into a large family (the fourth of eleven children) inChristianshavn, at the time an impoverished district of Copenhagen. In 1877 his family moved toNexø on Bornholm, and he adopted the name of this town as his last name. Having been an industrial worker before, in Nexø he attended afolk high school, and later worked as a journalist. He spent the mid-1890s travelling in Southern Europe, and his bookSoldage (1903) (English:Days in the Sun) is largely based on those travels. Like many of his literary contemporaries, includingJohannes Vilhelm Jensen, Nexø was at first heavily influenced byfin-de-siècle pessimism, but gradually turned to a moreextroverted view, joining theSocial Democratic movement and later theCommunist Party of Denmark; his later books reflect his political support of the Soviet Union.
Pelle Erobreren (English:Pelle the Conqueror), published in four volumes 1906–1910, is his best-known work and the one most translated. Its first section was made the subject of theDDR-FS moviePelle der Eroberer in 1986[1] and the moviePelle Erobreren in 1987.Ditte Menneskebarn (English:Ditte, Child of Man), written from 1917 to 1921, praises the working woman for her self-sacrifice; a Danish film version of the first part of the book was released in 1946 asDitte, Child of Man. The much-debatedMidt i en Jærntid (i.e. "In an Iron Age", English:In God's Land), written in 1929, satirises the Danish farmers ofWorld War I. During his latter years, 1944 to 1956, Nexø wrote but did not complete a trilogy consisting of the booksMorten hin Røde (English:Morten the Red),Den fortabte generation (English:The Lost Generation), andJeanette. This was ostensibly a continuation ofPelle the Conqueror, but also a masked autobiography.
In 1941, duringDenmark's occupation byGermany, Danish police arrested Nexø due to his communist affiliation. Upon his release he traveled to neutral Sweden and then to the Soviet Union, where he made broadcasts to Nazi-occupied Denmark and Norway. AfterWorld War II, Nexø moved toDresden inEast Germany, where he was made an honorary citizen. TheMartin-Andersen-Nexø-Gymnasium high school in Dresden was named after him. His international reputation as one of the greatest Europeansocial writers grew, especially, but not exclusively, in socialist countries.[citation needed]
Nexø died in Dresden in 1954 and was interred in theAssistens Kirkegård in theNørrebro neighbourhood of Copenhagen. Aminor planet,3535 Ditte, discovered by Soviet astronomerNikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1979, is named after the main character in his novelDitte, Child of Man.[2]Martin Andersen Nexø's home inNexø has become a museum in his memory.[3] As per Danish copyright law, his works entered thepublic domain on 1 January 2025, 70 full calendar years after his death in 1954.
In 1949, Nexø received an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Greifswald'sFaculty of Arts.
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