Helga M. Novak

Who was Helga M. Novak?

Helga M. Novak was a German-Icelandic writer.

Novak was born in Berlin. She grew up in East Germany, studied journalism and philosophy at the University of Leipzig.

She moved to Iceland in 1961, where she married and had two children before her divorce.

She traveled to Spain, France, and the U.S., before returning to East Germany. When her citizenship was revoked for writing and publishing critical texts, she moved between Iceland, Germany and Bulgaria. She was an informer for the East German Stasi. Although a citizen of Iceland, she lived in Legbad, Poland, from 1987 until her death in 2013.