Hans Kirk is the main representative of Marxist fiction in Denmark in the 1920s and 1930s. His novels are based on a thorough knowledge of social conditions in Denmark at the time and of the social and psychological contrasts as reflected in the religious views of different social classes. His first novel, Fiskerne (The Fishermen, 1928), is a novel without a main character, a truly collective novel that deals with a tightly knit group of poor fishermen, whose fate he himself had shared for a period, and whom he therefore knew intimately. In the period immediately preceding his literary debut he had written several sociological articles in various left-wing periodicals, in which he had drawn attention to the close interrelationship between social conditions and religious views, with special reference to the two most important religious groups in Denmark, the adherents of Indre Mission (Home Mission), whose supporters were pietists...