Scherfig, Hans

(1905-1979)

   A Danish novelist, Scherfig came from an upper-middle-class home but rebelled against his origins and became a communist. Full of contempt for the middle class, he skewered its representatives in his novels. Scherfig's literary debut was the novel Den døde Mand (1937; The Dead Man), a detective story set among artists. In his next book, Den forsvundne Fuldmegtig (1938; tr. The Missing Bureaucrat, 1989), the protagonist stages a suicide in order to get away from his boring existence, including his wife.

   When he finds that he cannot stand his newfound freedom, however, he manages to become imprisoned for a murder he did not commit. The novel Det forsømte Foraar (1940; tr. Stolen Spring, 1986) is a satire on Danish education. The characters, young people who have a great deal of promise, become suited only to middle-class life. Some of them return in Scherfig's later novels.

   During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, Scherfig was interned for a while, and he was very bitter about the war experience. Idealister (1945; tr. The Idealists, 1949) describes how supposedly decent people take advantage of others and allow themselves to be seduced into accepting Nazi ideas. Scherfig had completed the manuscript by 1941, but it was censored as he was arrested. Skorpionen (1953; The Scorpion) is a fictionalization of a famous Danish court case involving corruption, black market trade, and collusion between criminals and members of the social elite; it draws on some of Scherfig's newspaper articles written while the case was before the courts. Frydenholm (1962) tells about how Scherfig and other communists were treated during the war, when, in violation of the Danish constitution, their political rights were retroactively revoked and they were arrested. Scherfig also wrote a number of travel books in which he extols the virtues of communist societies.