Johan Nordahl Brun Grieg (1 November 1902 – 2 December 1943) was a Norwegian poet, novelist, dramatist, journalist and political activist. He was a popular author and a controversial public figure. He served in World War II as a war correspondent and was killed while on a bombing mission to Berlin. Background Nordahl Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway. He was the son of Peter Lexau Grieg (1864–1924) and Helga Vollan (1869–1946). He was the brother of Norwegian publisher Harald Grieg (1894–1972) and was distantly related to composer Edvard Grieg. In 1940, he married actress Gerd Egede-Nissen (1895–1988). He studied at the Royal Frederick University (now the University of Oslo) and spent time travelling abroad, sometimes as a tourist and sometimes as a sailor. Receiving the 1924 Norway Scholarship, Grieg spent a year at Wadham College at Oxford, England, studying history and literature. At least one of Grieg's poems, "Kapellet i Wadham College" was inspired by his stay there, where he was a contemporary of Cecil Day-Lewis. Career Poet, playwright and journalist Grieg debuted in 1922 with his first book of poetry Omkring Kap det gode Haab, based on his seagoing experiences – as was Skibet gaar videre (1924). The latter book aroused controversy for its exposure of sailors' harsh living and working conditions. Grieg spent 1927 as a newspaper correspondent in China, where he witnessed firsthand the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists. The same year Grieg's plays En ung manns Kjaerlighet and Barabbas were produced. The latter was a modern revolutionary interpretation of New Testament character Barabbas. The 1929 poetry collection Norge i våre hjerter expressed deep love for his country and his people in their poverty and misery and attracted critical acclaim. His 1935 play Vår ære og vår makt depicted the lives of Norwegian sailors during World War I in which Norway remained neutral and traded with both sides. The work was an attack on the shipping industry's exploitation of seafarers. From 1936 to 1937, Grieg published the magazine Veien Frem, which initially succeeded in attracting prominent writers, but as the magazine adopted an increasingly Stalinist position relating to the Moscow Trials, most of them severed ties with it and it ceased publication. His 1937 dramatic play Nederlaget was about the Paris Commune. The Spanish Civil War was the subject of Spansk sommer (1937) and partly also of Ung må verden ennu være, whose