Nobel Prize for Literature won by Swedish womanNobel Prize for Literature won by Swedish womanNobel Prize for Literature won by Swedish womanNobel Prize for Literature won by Swedish woman Prepared by John Horsefield, Cowra U3A

In 1909 Selma Lagerlöf was the Nobel Laureate in Literature

‘in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination

and spiritual perception that characterise her writings’.

Her work is deeply rooted in Nordic legends and history. She turned away from the dominating real-istic movement and wrote in a roman-tic and imaginative manner about the peasant life and landscape of North-ern Sweden. She used fantasy in many of her stories and novels, blur-ring the border between dreams and reality.

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was born on November 20, 1858, in Östra Emterwik, Värmland, Sweden. She was brought up on Mårbacka, the family estate in Sunne, South-East Sweden, which she did not leave until 1881. Her father was a retired army officer.

Selma was tutored at home. She grew up largely apart from other children in the little family estate. In the care of her paternal grandmother she heard fairy tales and legends, sto-ries about the glorious past of the great estates in the Värmland region, a world of cavaliers, sleighing parties, and superstitions. Her native Värm-land is the background for many of her excellent stories, which deal with peasant life.

She studied at the Royal Women's Superior Training Academy in Stockholm, graduating as a teacher in 1882. She worked as a teacher at a girl's school at Landskrona for ten years, from 1885 to 1895. Supported financially by her friend Baroness Sophie Aldesparre, Selma wrote her first novel which appeared in 1891.

She had been writing poetry ever since she was a child, but Selma did not

publish anything until 1890, when she won the first prize in a literary competi-tion, sponsored by the magazine Idun which published excerpts from the book

which was to be her first, best, and most popular work.

Gösta Berling’s Saga was pub-lished in 1891, but went unnoticed until its Danish translation received wide critical acclaim and paved the way for the book's lasting success in Sweden and elsewhere. The innovative story-telling style of the Saga received wide critical acclaim. Writ-ten in a lyrical style, full of pathos, it showed the influence of Thomas Carlyle and played a part in the Swedish Roman-tic revival of the 1890s.

It is a romantic tale of 12 cavaliers led by renegade priest Gösta Berling. In

the episodic story, set in Värmland, an estate is run to wrack and ruin by a group of adventurers, ‘cavaliers of Ekeby’, in accordance with the plan of the evil Sin-tram. Among the twelve gallant and

Selma in 1894

reckless cavaliers is young Gösta, the temperamental hero.

‘Before her knelt Gösta Berling. He had a face compassionate as a poet's and bold as a soldier's. His eyes were deep, glowing with wit and genius; they invited. He was supple and full of strength, fiery and in-triguing.’

Gösta's magnetic personality inevi-tably draws people to him. Eventually he marries the Countess Elisabeth, whose husband has divorced her. Through Elisa-beth's influence and his own efforts, he is able to find peace in his life. A film ver-sion of the story was made in 1924 by Mauritz Stiller, starring Greta Garbo.

Osynliga Länkar (Invisible Links), a collection of short stories published in 1894, gained an immedi-ate success. Also in 1894 Lagerlöf met a fellow writer Sophie Elkan (1853-1921), who became her lifelong companion, and whose biography Selma left unfinished at the time of her own death. Her letters to Sophie, Du Lär Mig Att Bli Fri, were published in 1992.

In 1895 a fellowship granted by King Oscar and a scholarship from the Swedish Academy encouraged her to abandon teaching altogether. Selma de-voted herself entirely to writing. She set-tled in Falun, where she spent most of her life. She travelled in Italy and Sicily with Sophie, and wrote Antikris mirakler (1897) [The Miracles of Antichrist], a so-cial novel set in Sicily. Another collection, En herrgårdssägen (Tales of a Manor), is one of her finest works.

A journey to Egypt and Palestine (1899-1900) inspired Jerusalem: I

Dalarne (1901) and Jerusalem: I Det

Heliga Landet (1902), which established her fame as the foremost Swedish novel-ist. Jerusalem (1901-1902) [The Holy

City] is a novel about Swedish peasants who emigrated to the Holy Land and whom she had visited in 1900. This work was her first immediate success. Jerusa-

lem was adapted in 1996 into an interna-tionally acclaimed motion picture.

The collection of stories, set in the 1890s, tells about the disruptive effects of a religious revival on a tradi-tional rural community in the province of Dalecarlia. The title refers to a pil-grimage to Jerusalem, for which the land of an old peasant family, the Ingmars of Ingmarson, is finally sold at an auction by one member of the fam-ily. Another Ingmar, however, re-nounces his fiancée and marries a rich woman in order to save the farm.

By 1902 Selma was a well-known novelist in Sweden and in Europe, and received worldwide rec-ognition as a gifted children's author. One of her other notable works was Herr Arnes Penningar (1904), a tersely but powerfully told historical tale

In Sweden, she received many marks of respect, such us the gold medal of the Swedish Academy in 1904 and the title of Honorary Doctor at the University of Uppsala in 1907.

The Swedish National Associa-tion of Teachers proposed her to write a book for the state elementary schools. Selma Lagerlöf devoted three years of work to study geography, animal life and Swedish folklore. The result of her research was published in 1906 in a book for children. It was partly inspired by Rudyard Kipling's animal stories.

The book, intended as a primer for elementary schools, became one of the most charming children's books in any language: Nils Holgerssons un-derbara resa genom Sverige (1906) [The Wonderful Adventures of Nils]. These short stories are classics of children's literature.

Nils Holgersson is a fourteen-year old Swedish boy who likes to play tricks on the animals of the farm. Nils is the son of poor farmers. His chief

delight is to eat and sleep, and ‘after that—he liked best to make mischief’.

One day, however, a little elf punishes young Nils and turns him into a Lilliputian who can talk with animals. Nils desperately seeks help from the animals of

Selma with her two geese the barnyard, but he has been so mean to all of them that nobody wants to speak to him. The only friends that he has left are a farm goose called Martin and Nils' little pet hamster.

Martin had always been dream-ing of being a wild goose and one day when he sees a flock of wild geese

flying over the farmhouse on their mi-gration to Lapland, Martin decides to join them. Nils and his hamster have just time to jump on Martin's wings and fly away with him.

‘Nils had grown so giddy that it was a long time before he came to himself. The winds howled and beat

A formal portrait by Carl Larsson against him, and the rustle of feathers and swaying of wings sounded like a great storm. Thir-teen geese flew around him, flapping their wings and honking. They danced before his eyes and they buzzed in his ears. He didn't know whether they were flying high or low or in what di-rection they were travelling ...’

As the three friends travel all over Sweden, they discover fascinat-ing places, learn many interesting things about the world, and enjoy many happy adventures together. Slowly, Nils starts learning to be kind to everyone and realises that perhaps

one day someone may help him to re-turn to his normal size.

The story has a strong moral tone, and its plea to respect nature is today even more urgent. This is a truly Scandinavian story, which reflects many of the traditional values of Scandinavian culture, such us love for nature, tolerance and playful learning.

As a geography reader for ele-mentary schools, Nils’ adventures transmit information to the children through interest, imagination and hu-mour. As he travels over Sweden, children became familiar with the na-ture, climate, geography and culture, learning at the same time the impor-tance of friendship, tolerance, and the belief in a good world.

When Nils Holgersson's book was published in 1906, it quickly be-came the most popular book of the year in Scandinavia. Selma was ac-claimed then as the greatest story-teller in Scandinavian literature since Hans Christian Andersen. Today, al-most a century after its publishing, Nordic children are still growing up with The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson. The story is also well-known in countries outside the Scan-dinavia and the book has been trans-lated so far into more than 30 languages.

When the Japanese novelist Oe went to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966, he said that in his youth he had read the book many times, and felt that he knew Sweden already.

Another admirer of the book in his childhood was the philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994). ‘For many, many years I reread this book at least once a year’, he confessed in Unended Quest (1974), ‘and in the course of time I probably read everything by Selma Lagerlöf more than once’.

Selma received the 1909 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first woman to

be thus honoured. She bought back Mårbacka, her childhood home, with her Nobel Prize money. It had been sold in the 1880s, when her father died and money was needed to settle his debts.

Körkarlen (1912) was based on a legend alleging that the last man to die on New Year's Eve must drive Death's cart during the coming year. In the frame of a supernatural story, she dealt with social problems. Victor Sjöström's movie adaptation of the book, The Phantom Carriage (1921), is considered with its dramatic effects one of the greatest Swedish film clas-sics.

In 1914, she became a member of the body that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Acad-emy. She wrote very little during the years of and following World War 1. Although Sweden was not directly in-volved in the war, Selma was deeply saddened by the massacre of hun-dreds of thousands of lives on the fields of Europe.

During World War I she wrote lit-tle; Kejsarn Av Portugalien (1914), a story of truth, lies, and fantasies, is often mentioned as her last great achievement. The pacifist novel Bannlyst (1918) dealt with the evils caused by the war. In the 1920s Selma devoted much time to women's causes and also wrote some short stories.

Her short stories showed the in-fluence of fairy tales and she some-times borrowed elements from Victorian supernatural stories. In 'Old Agneta' a woman lives alone in a cot-tage on the edge of a broad glacier. In the solitude of the mountains she starts to talk to herself. She feels that she is already frozen with the cold and her empty solitude, and wants to die because nobody needs her.

A monk comes to her and shows that she is not alone—the mist and fog of the snow-covered mountain

are in reality a host of lost souls. Ag-neta burns candles in her cottage for the ghosts, who are attracted by their light and warmth. ‘Where would the souls of the departed find a refuge from the boundless cold of Death, if the old ones here on earth did not throw open their hearts to them?’ She is happy because she knows that she is needed. After she dies the mountain is lit by the ghosts with tiny yellow flames.

None of her later works matched the power or success of Gösta Berlings

Saga. She published several volumes of reminiscences under the titles Mårbacka (1922-32) and Ett barns memoarer (1930; Memories of My Childhood). In Dagbok

Receiving the Nobel Prize in 1909

This formal portrait is by Hanna Pauli.

Selma’s image appeared on this Swedish

postage stamp issued in 1969.

för Selma Lagerlöf (1932; The Diary of Selma Lagerlöf), she recalled her child-hood with subtle artistry.

In the mid-twenties she published the historical trilogy: Löwensköldska Rin-

gen (1925), Charlotte Löwensköld (1927),

and Anna Svärd (1928) [The Ring of the

Löwenskölds, 3 vols.]. She wrote a biog-raphy of the Finnish author Zachris Tope-lius, while her autobiography, which comprised several volumes, was very popular in the 1930s.

As World War II approached, Lagerlöf helped German intellectuals and artists to escape Nazi persecu-tion. She managed to arrange a Swedish visa for the poet Nelly Sachs, and saved her from a death camp.

At the start of World War II, she sent her Nobel Prize medal to the government of Finland to help them raise money to fight the Soviet Union. The Finnish government was so touched that it raised the necessary money by other means and returned her medal to her. In the midst of her efforts to provide war relief to the blockaded population of Finland, Selma Lagerlöf died of a stroke at her home in her beloved family estate of Mårbacka on March 16, 1940.

In a new book Selma på Mår-

backa", published in 1996, the journalist Lars Westman throws new light on the life of Selma Lagerlöf . The chapter ‘Beloved Valborg! Beloved Selma!’ deals with the

Her face also appears on the Swedish 20

krona note, first issued in 1991.

relationship between Selma Lagerlöf and a school-teacher Valborg Ohlander. ‘If anyone ever has written love-letters to each other it is Selma and Valborg’, says Westman in the book.

Selma and Valborg lived apart from each other much of the time, but Valborg was often visiting the well-

known author at her Mårbacka home. She typed many of Selma's manu-scripts, answered letters, etc, as Alice B Toklas had done for Gertrude Stein.

The two women's love for each other was complicated by Selma's friendship with the author Sophie El-kan. The two authors did a lot of trav-elling together, but Valborg was always present mentally. "You do not choose Valborg instead of me, do you?", wrote Sophie to Selma in 1901.

According to Westman, Selma's love for Sophie, which is also documented in a large number of let-ters, was only platonic, whereas the relationship with Valborg included physical love. Westman is further con-vinced, that the two women wanted the world to know about their love.

A lot of their most intimate cor-respondence was destroyed, but they left deliberately enough material for coming generations to know about the nature of their relationship. However, all of Selma's correspondence was, for reasons we understand today, sealed until 1991, fifty years after her death.

Several of her works, often based on legends and sagas, served as the basis for early Swedish films. Two hotels are named after her in Sunne, where she lived.

Her portrait has been featured on the Swedish 20 krona bill since 1991. She thus actively partakes in the present lesbian visibility project. Her Mårbacka home in Värmland county is now a museum, open to the public. It includes a Valborg Ohlander and a Sophie Elkan room.

Further reading

Works by Lagerlöf (in translation)

Lagerlöf, Selma, The Changeling, 1992 Lagerlöf, Selma, Christ Legends, 2004 Lagerlöf, Selma, Diary of Selma Lagerlöf, Lagerlöf, Selma, The Emperor of Portu-

galia, Velma Swanston Howard (Translator), 2005

Lagerlöf, Selma, From a Swedish Home-

stead, 2001 Lagerlöf, Selma, Further Adventures of

Nils, Velma Swanston Howard (Translator), 2003

Lagerlöf, Selma, Generals Ring,

Lagerlöf, Selma, The Girl From The

Marsh Croft, 2004 Lagerlöf, Selma, The Girl From The

Marsh Croft and Other Stories,

2005 Lagerlöf, Selma, Invisible Links,

Lagerlöf, Selma, Jerusalem, 2006 Lagerlöf, Selma, The Legend of the

Christmas Rose, 1990 Lagerlöf, Selma, The legend of the Sacred

Image, 2005 Lagerlöf, Selma, Lowenskold Ring, Linda

Schenck (Translator), Lagerlöf, Selma, Mårbacka, Lagerlöf, Selma, Memories of Mårbacka,

Greta Anderson (Translator), 1996 Lagerlöf, Selma, Memories of my child-

hood: Further years at Mårbacka, Lagerlöf, Selma, The Miracles of Anti-

christ, 2003

Lagerlöf, Selma, Scandinavian Kings &

Queens : Three Stories, 1996 Lagerlöf, Selma, The Treasure, 2005 Lagerlöf, Selma, The story of Gösta Ber-

ling, Lagerlöf, Selma, The Wonderful Adven-

tures of Nils, 1995 Lagerlöf, Selma, et al, The Emperor's Vi-

sion and Other Christ Legends,

2002 Lagerlöf, Selma, et al, The Legend of the

Christmas Rose,

Lagerlöf, Selma, et al, Selma Lagerlöf's

Words of Love and Wisdom, 2000

Works about Lagerlöf or her writing (in English) Berendsohn, Walter Arthur, Selma Lager-

löf, Her Life and Work, 1931 Edström, Vivi Blom, Selma Lagerlöf

(Scandinavian literature), Gustafson, Alrik, Six Scandinavian Novel-

ists: Lie, Jacobsen, Heidenstam,

Selma Lagerlof, Hamsum, Sigrid

Undset, 1968 Hooper, Frances, A pilgrimage to Gösta

Berling's Värmland, Hutchinson, Emily, Selma Lagerlof: Great

Short Stories from Around the

World, 1994 Larsen, Hanna Astrup, Selma Lagerlöf: A

Short Biography of the First

Woman Winner of the Nobel Prize

for Literature, 1936 Lovisa, Otilliana, Contemporary Authors:

Biography—Lagerlöf, Selma,

Maule, Harry Edward, Selma Lagerlöf:

The woman, her work, her mes-

sage, Nordlund, Anna, ‘Corpses, curses, and

cannibalism: containment and ex-cess in Selma Lagerlöf’s Bannlyst and its reception’, in Scandinavian

Studies, 22 June 2004. Nylander, Lars T, ‘Psychologism and the

novel: the case of Selma Lagerlof's Goesta Ferling's Saga, in Scandi-

navian Studies, 22 September 1995.

Olson-Buckner, Elsa, The epic tradition in

Gösta Berlings saga, St Andrews, Bonnie A, Forbidden Fruit:

On the Relationship Between

Women and Knowledge in Doris

Lessing, Selma Lagerlöf, Kate

Chopin, Margaret Atwood, Sondrup, Steven P, ‘Girl from the Marsh

Croft’ (book review) in Scandina-

vian Studies, 22 September 1997. Sondrup, Steven P, ‘Memories of Mår-

backa’ (book review) in Scandina-

vian Studies, 22 September 1997. Sondrup, Steven P, ‘Three Stories: Scan-

dinavian Kings and Queens: As-trid, Sigrid Storrade, and The Silver Mine’ (book review) in Scandinavian Studies, 22 Septem-ber 1997.

de Vrieze, Folkerdina Stientje, Fact and

fiction in the autobiographical

works of Selma Lagerlof, 1958

Watson, Jennifer, ‘Swedish Novelist Selma Lagerlöf, 1858-1940, and Germany at the Turn of the Cen-tury’, in Scandinavian Studies, 22 June 2004.