Hans Kirk (11 January 1898 – 16 June 1962) was a Danish lawyer, journalist and celebrated author, who penned the best-selling novel of all-time in his native Denmark, The Fishermen (1928). Kirk was a long-time Communist Party member in Denmark and remained active until his death. In 1941, during the German occupation, Kirk and hundreds of others were arrested without charge by the Danish police in a sweep against communists and communist sympathizers. He was imprisoned and detained at the Danish concentration camp of Horserød, but managed to escape in 1943, just in time to avoid deportation to the German death camps.
Hans Kirk's novels, which in addition to The Fishermen include The Day Laborers and The New Times, reflect Kirk's Marxist-influenced beliefs. His style is noted for subtle punctuation expressions. Perhaps the most striking is the absence of quotation marks, a practice that obscures the presence of narrator/author. Long dashes are used to mark a change of time and the organization of his novels do not use chapter headings, just blank spaces between paragraphs.
Although Hans Kirk was a prolific author - in his lifetime Kirk produced eight novels, as well as short stories, essays, and radio plays - he remains relatively unknown in the United States. With the recent translations of The Fishermen, The Day Laborers, The New Times, and The Slave by University of Iowa professor Marc Linder in 2000- 2001, Kirk's novels are now available for the first time in English.
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