Helga Novak

Amy Kepple Strawser (Ohio State University)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

Born 8 Sep 1935
Died 24 Dec 2013
Activity 1963-2013

Places

Born in Germany
Active in Germany; Iceland; Poland

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Poet

Resources

Novak's Works

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Helga M. Novak was born 8 September 1935 in Berlin-Köpenick as Maria Karlsdottir. She was adopted and raised by parents who disapproved of her joining the FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend [Free German Youth]) of the new socialist German Democratic Republic. Novak attended boarding school and studied journalism and philosophy at the University of Leipzig. She held various assembly and technical jobs at that time and later in Iceland, where she moved in 1961 upon her marriage to an Icelander. Together they had two children and later divorced. Novak today remains a citizen of Iceland.

In 1965, she returned to the GDR to continue her studies at the Johannes R. Becher Literature Institute in Leipzig. In this year she also published her first volume of poetry in Germany, Ballade von der reisenden

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1045 words

Citation: Strawser, Amy Kepple. "Helga Novak". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 September 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=6016, accessed 03 December 2024.]

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