Strindberg, August

Born in Stockholm in 1850, August Strindberg died in 1912. Extremely productive Swedish playwright, novelist and experimental artist, painter and photographer. The first stories from the Stockholm Archipelago fall into the time as an editor for the daily newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" in 1873. His breakthrough came in 1879 with the critical novel The Red Room (Röda rummet). After a blasphemy trial, Strindberg spent many years in Copenhagen, Austria, Berlin and Paris. In 1907 he founded the Intimate Theatre in Stockholm.



Liljegren, Eva

Born in 1915, Eva Liljegren died in 2000. She worked as an editor (at Bonniers pubishing house in Stockholm between 1959 and 1980) and translator, mostly from German. Among her authors were the Nobel prize winner Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, Elias Canetti and Elfriede Jelinek, but even classic writers like Jane Austen and Hermann Hesse. She also translated Karen Blixen and Helle Stangerup from Danish.
 
She won several literary awards in Sweden, among them De Nio's Translator Prize in 1989 and Natur och Kultur's Translator Prize in 1990.  

Blomqvist, Lars Erik

Fil. lic in Slavic languages (Russian literature) at Stockholm University in 1967, lecturer in the Department of East European Studies at Uppsala University 1975-1996 (University Teaching Excellence Award 1990), died on October 10, 2021 in Stockholm.
As a writer and translator from Russian to Swedish he received several literary awards: De Nio Award 1994, Swedish Academy Award 1995 as well as the Elsa Thulin Translation Award 1996.

Numers, Lorenz von

Born in Åbo (Turku), von Numers lived between 1913 and 1994. He was a translator and author as well as a journalist in Finnish and Swedish newspapers, including Svenska Dagbladet. As the cosmopolite he was, he became a resident in France from 1959.
 
von Numers made his debut with the poetry collection Svart harnesk (1934) followed by Porträtt med blomma (1936) and Havslyktan (1942), collections characterized by formal skill, imagination and sense of life.
 
As a prose writer, he gave a romanticized portrait of the French Bohemian poet François Villon's life, Snäckans bröder (1946), in addition to several other historical novels, e.g. Drottningens handelsmän (1964), a colorful, witty and entertaining depiction of Moscow in the 1650s in a cultured narrative style.
 
Lorenz von Numers also wrote satirical contemporary novels, travel stories, historical essays, and he translated French literature, e.g. André Gide and Bédier's Novel of Tristan and Isolde.

Lindgren, Astrid

Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren is born on 14th November 1907 at the parsonage in Näs, Vimmerby, second child to Samuel August and Hanna Ericsson. After graduating from high school in Vimmerby she works as a volonteer at Vimmerby tidning a few years. At first she writes notices and reviews, does proofreading and answers the telephone. After only a short time she is also entrusted with the task of providing journalistic articles for the paper. In 1926 she moves to Stockholm, where she works as a secretary. In 1933 Astrid Lindgren´s first children’s stories are published in Stockholms-Tidningen and in Landsbygdens Jul. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Astrid begins to write a “War Diary”. She works as secretary to Harry Söderman, Associate Professor in Criminology at Stockholm University, and learns a great deal about encryption, finger-printing and criminal technology. Her parents-in-law purchase the house in Furusund, which is to become Astrid Lindgren’s summer residence for the rest of her life. This is where she wrote many of her books and film-scripts. Astrid is offered a top secret job at the Special Intelligence Agency in the mailcensorship office which gives her deep insight into the afflictions of war in the world.
In 1944 the publishing firm Rabén & Sjögren runs a competition for authors of books for girls. Astrid makes her debut as author by winning 2nd Prize with Britt-Mari lättar sitt hjärta. She wins 1st Prize in the Rabén & Sjögren competition, Best Book for 6-10 year olds with a reworked manuscript for Pippi Longstocking. The book is released and becomes a great success with 20,000 copies sold in two weeks. In the autumn of 1946, Astrid Lindgren is employed as Publishing Editor with Rabén & Sjögren but keeps writing her own books as well, one after another.
In 1957 Astrid Lindgren begins her collaboration with the director Olle Hellbom, in the making of the third Bill Bergson film. They made a total of 17 films together. In 1963 Seacrow Island is written as a TV series (before it becomes a book). The first book about Emil in Lönneberga is published. Pippi Longstocking becomes a TV series in 1969, which turns into a great success. Astrid Lindgren retires from Rabén & Sjögren in 1970. In 1981 the theme-park, Astrid Lindgren’s World, is founded in Vimmerby, under the name “Sagobyn” (Fairytale Village). Astrid’s last book is published in 1993, the picture-book Jullov är ett bra påhitt, sa Madicken. After a period of illness, Astrid Lindgren passes away on 28th January 2002 at her home in Dalagatan, Stockholm.
Astrid Lindgren receives several awards, among others the H. C. Andersen Medal, often called the “Nobel Prize for Children’s Literature”, the Swedish Academy’s Grand Gold Medal and the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels, the German Booksellers’ Peace Prize in 1978.

Parland, Henry

In May of 1929, the Finland-Swedish student of law and recently debuted poet, Henry Parland, born in 1908 in Viborg, was sent by his parents from Helsinki to Kaunas (Kovno), the capital of Lithuania. They wanted to save him from booze, bohemianism, and modernism. It was the final move for the young author, who died a year and a half later of scarlet fever in his exile. He was only 22 years old. He was interred in Kaunas.

The Parland family, domiciled on the Karelian Isthmus, in St. Petersburg, and in Vyborg, and, further back in time, with German-Baltic and English fore-fathers, had settled in Finland after the Russian Revolution. Like many other emigrants, the family had lost their homes and other assets in the revolution. But they had Finnish citizenship.

As a fourteen-year-old, Henry Parland, the eldest of four gifted brothers, began attending a Swedish school in Grankulla (Kauniainen) outside Helsinki. Swedish became his fourth language — after German, Russian, and Finnish — and his literary language. After he completed his secondary school studies in 1927, there followed two academic years of law study at the University of Helsinki, but even more of “life studies” and preparations for a life of letters. Parland became one of the collaborators in the journal Quosego. Tidskrift för ny generation [Quosego: Journal for New Generation] (1928–1929), together with, among others, the older modernist authors Elmer Diktonius, Hagar Olsson, Gunnar Björling, and Rabbe Enckell.

The goal-oriented Parland had already tried to get a collection of poetry published in the fall of 1927, without success. A year later, he did better, and in the spring of 1929, the through-composed collection Idealrealisation [Ideals Clearance] appeared, one of the most exciting Finland-Swedish poem collections of the 20th century.