Karl Friedrich Kurz

Who was Karl Friedrich Kurz?

Karl Friedrich Kurz was a Swiss/German/Norwegian novelist.

Kurz was born near Freiburg, Bremgarten, Markgräflerland in Germany. As a child he moved with his parents to Basel in Switzerland. He wanted to be a painter and entered the academy in Karlsruhe.

Coincidences made him a writer. He led a vagrant life with an extensive travelling activity in among others East Asia and Japan before he settled in Norway where he wrote novels in German. He was influenced by Knut Hamsun and got inspiration from the nature and folk life in the fjords of Sogn and Sunnfjord.

His novels enjoyed great popularity in Germany and were sold in great numbers. In 1934 he was awarded the Großer Schillerpreis by the Schweizerischen Schillerstiftung in Zürich.

He first lived in the area of Solund, then near Vadheim in Lavik before he in 1924 settled in Vårdal in Dalsfjorden in Sunnfjord. He lived there until he in 1950 left his family and moved to Nessjøen in Fjell municipality at Sotra in Hordaland where he lived until his death in 1962, at 84 years of age.

The papers he left behind when he died are mostly lost.

Karl Friedrich Kurz is buried at the churchyard at Holmedal in Dalsfjorden, Sunnfjord.