Kristensen, Erling

Born June 9, 1893, in Holte Hede, near Brønderslev; died June 25, 1961. Danish writer. Son of an agricultural laborer.

Kristensen’s first novel, The Mainstay (1927), is directed against idealization of the peasantry. In this and subsequent novels— The City Between Two Towers (1928), King of the Beggars (1929; Russian translation, 1935), Clay (1930), and The Millstone Is Grinding (1932)—Kristensen ridiculed the mores of the Danish provincial bourgeoisie. In his antifascist novel, A Man Among Men (1936), which contains pessimistic motifs, Kristensen condemned war and unemployment. He also wrote the collections of stories Around the Nest of Mankind (1947) and Reminiscences of a Hunter (1949).