Martin Andersen Nexø was born into a large family (the fourth of eleven children) in Christianshavn, at the time an impoverished district of Copenhagen.

Like many of his literary contemporaries, including Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, Nexø was at first heavily influenced by fin-de-siècle pessimism, but gradually turned to a more extroverted view, joining the Social Democratic movement and later the Communist Party of Denmark; his later books reflect his political support of the Soviet Union.

The much-debated Midt i en Jærntid (i.e. "In an Iron Age", English: In God's Land), written in 1929, satirises the Danish farmers of World War I.

After World War II, Nexø moved to Dresden in East Germany, where he was made an honorary citizen.

[3] As per Danish copyright law, his works entered the public domain on 1 January 2025, 70 full calendar years after his death in 1954.