Helga M. Novak (pseudonym for Maria Karlsdottir; 8 September 1935 – 24 December 2013) was a German-Icelandic writer.
She grew up in East Germany, studied journalism and philosophy at the University of Leipzig.
She resigned from the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1957 in protest for the Soviet invasion of Hungary, which had taken place in 1956.
When her citizenship was revoked for writing and publishing critical texts, she moved between Iceland, Germany, Poland, and Bulgaria.
For a short period, she was an informer ("inoffizieller Mitarbeiter") for the East German Stasi.