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Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren
Astrid was born on November 14, 1907 (her zodiac sign is Scorpio) in the small town of Vimmerby in southern Sweden. The parents were engaged in farming and raised their four children.
Astrid’s parents were named Ericsson. They had known each other since childhood. There was a great affection between them, which grew into love in their youth and they got married. The Ericsson family lived like a fairy tale! Everyone loved each other, worked together on the farm and rested together in the bosom of nature.
Probably, Astrid’s happy childhood prompted her to write children’s stories.
The future writer studied very well at school, and was especially fond of literature. She was fluent in words, so one day her school essay was published in the newspaper.
After graduating from school and growing up, Astrid decided to start an independent life. She began working as a journalist for a local publication. Then, having gone through a personal drama, because of the need, he gets a job as a secretary of a small office.
There she worked for several years until she got married. Telling stories to her little daughter, she creates the famous work “Pippi Longstocking”, beloved by all children. A loving mother wrote this tale for a sick baby.
Children of all countries adored the red-haired Peppy. They loved her rebellious nature! Everything described in the book was very relevant to them. Publishers did not immediately accept Lingdgren’s first manuscript, believing that it violated accepted norms in parenting. The first to be published was her second book, Britt Marie Pouring Out Her Soul.
Works by Astrid Lindgren
Since 1945, Lindgren worked as an editor for a publishing house that produced her own books and wrote her famous children’s stories about the childhood life of Bullerby.
In 1950, the writer already had a whole arsenal of works. A three-volume book about Pippi was completed. Two collections of children’s fairy tales, books for girls have been written. Novels, plays, songbooks and even books – pictures for the little ones. The author’s works had a very different direction, but they were all created for children.
After five years of creative achievements (in 1955), the writer took first place in the competition with a book about the young detective Kalle Blumkvist. After the competition, everyone’s favorite book about Carlson is published.
She describes in great detail the problems of children that adults do not notice. After all, they seem insignificant to them. Many children recognized themselves in Malysh and read the work avidly. The story of her daughter became the prototype for this tale.
The girl had a very developed imagination. She said that a little man came to her through the window and amused her. And when the adults enter, he supposedly hides in the room behind various objects.
The writer became famous and wealthy, but remained humble. All her life her family lived in the same house in which they settled during the war years. She always understood and loved children.
She even spoke in the Swedish Parliament, after which the first law in Europe was approved, which stood up to protect children’s interests and rights. The famous writer died on January 28, 2002.
After her death, Astrid Lindgren continues to give children fairy tales. Her museum in Stockholm is never empty. There are always many people who want to plunge into the fabulous whirlpool.
Personal life
When young Astrid decided to live separately from her parents, she began to lead an active lifestyle. She was engaged in journalism, loved jazz, she liked modern dances. She even got a short haircut, which was fashionable in those years.
Like all young girls, she fell in love and plunged headlong into the whirlpool of passion. They parted with the young man. From this relationship, she had a son.
It was very difficult for young Astrid. There was not enough money, and she decided on a desperate step. To save her child from poverty, she agrees to give him to a foster family. The young mother was very upset by this separation, but she knew that it was temporary.
To hide the shame, the future celebrity moves to Stockholm. There she met her husband Lindgren. In this marriage, her daughter Karin was born. In 1931, she was able to take her son to her new family.
Astrid paid a lot of attention to her family. She was engaged in children and told them a lot of stories. This is probably how her world-famous works were born.
Astrid Lindgren: biography (video)
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The writer, who gave children the amazingly charming character Carlson and the pretty nutcase Pippi Longstocking, has become familiar to all the children of the world. It is difficult to find a family where the kind and fascinating books of Astrid Lindgren have not been read. The Swedish writer, like no one else, unraveled the child’s soul and found a path to it. In simple words, she outlined the main problems and fears of little people, reminding adults of what they once knew, but forgot.
Childhood and youth
Astrid Anna Emilia Eriksson, this is the full name of the writer before marriage, was born in November 1907 in Sweden, on the Nes farm. The childhood years of the future writer passed in the farm estate. Proximity to nature, the measured age of “horse and convertible” contributed to the spiritual openness and development of the creative beginning of the young Swede.
Love and harmony reigned in the Ericssons’ house. Astrid’s parents met at the market when her mother was 7 and her father 13. Childhood friendship grew into sympathy, and later – into love. Samuel August and Hannah had four children: the firstborn, the son Gunnar, and 3 daughters, the eldest of whom was Astrid Anna Emilia.
Children were surrounded by peasant life and pristine nature. The children helped their parents with the housework, and in their free time they rushed around the farm in search of adventure. In the family, according to Astrid, a surprisingly kind atmosphere reigned: adults did not hesitate to show warm feelings for each other and children, which was rare in peasant families.
Little Lindgren loved to listen to folklore stories and legends that were often told to children on the farm. Astrid, who had not yet learned to read, first heard a book fairy tale in a friend’s house – her mother read it to children in the kitchen. The impressionable girl listened, plunged into the magical world and returned to reality for a long time. Soon Lindgren learned to read and write, and reading forever became her favorite pastime. Already in the elementary grades, the future writer demonstrated literary abilities, for which she was jokingly called Selma Lagerlöf (the first Nobel laureate in literature).
After graduating from high school, the 16-year-old girl got a job as a junior reporter for a local periodical. After 2 years, Lindgren, pregnant by a married man, left Vimmerby and went to the capital, wanting to get lost in a city of a million people, where no one knows her. In Stockholm, Astrid trained as a secretary and worked at the Royal Automobile Club until the birth of her child.
Interesting facts about Astrid Lindgren
- She learned to read when she fell in love with books – a more literate friend read them to her. The desire to learn to read on their own took over.
- Astrid Lindgren’s parents met in childhood. Later, many years later, they got married.
- Astrid Lindgren has always had a strong rebellious spirit. In her youth, she cut her hair short and wore trousers, which were then considered exclusively male clothing. She was condemned, but she did not change her mind.
- She first started working as a journalist’s assistant when she was only fifteen years old.
- Her first independent publications were children’s fairy tales, written by order of one magazine.
- One of Astrid Lindgren’s most famous books was Pippi Longstocking, about a strong-willed girl. At the same time, all publishing houses refused to print the book for a long time, stating that it teaches children the wrong things.
- Asteroid Lindgren got its name in honor of the famous writer.
- Almost all the works of Astrid Lindgren were filmed at different times.
- Astrid Lindgren is the recipient of the H. H. Andersen Medal, the world’s most prestigious award for excellence in children’s literature.
- Even during her lifetime, Astrid Lindgren became so famous that a lifetime monument was erected to her in her native Sweden. She became the first writer in the country to receive such an honor.
- Even being already a very elderly lady, she loved to play with children in parks and playgrounds.
- During the Second World War, Astrid Lindgren worked in Swedish intelligence, checking other people’s correspondence.
- All her life, Astrid Lindgren transferred large sums to charity. In modern currency, her donations would exceed 10 million Swedish kronor.
- In Sweden, since 2002, the Astrid Lindgren Literary Prize has been awarded to especially distinguished children’s writers.
- The writer, at her own expense, founded and maintained a rehabilitation center for disabled children.
- Drafts of her works Astrid Lindgren wrote in the form of shorthand. According to her, she was engaged in this business mainly in the prone position, and while lying down it was more convenient to take shorthand than to write.
- At the age of nineteen, she gave birth to a child by the editor of the magazine where she worked, a married man and, in addition, 20 years older than her. After that, she had to leave both work and her home, as the family did not accept her illegitimate son.
- In her youth, Astrid Lindgren had a hard time when she did not even have money for food.
- Her first publications were published without the name of the author.
- The authority of Astrid Lindgren was so great that half a century ago, having developed a violent public activity, she indirectly contributed to the removal of socialists from power in the Swedish government.
Screen adaptations
The works of the Swedish storyteller have been filmed dozens of times and staged on the stage in Europe, America and Asia. For the first time, the story of Blomkvist appeared on the screens: the premiere of the picture took place in 1947 on the Christmas holidays. After 2 years, small viewers saw a film adaptation of Peppy’s adventures.
In the USSR, the work of Astrid Lindgren was widely known and loved. In 1976, the children of the Soviet Union saw on the screens the film “The Adventures of Calle the Detective”, in 1978 – the film “Rasmus the Tramp”, after 6 years – “Pippi Longstocking” and “Tricks of the Tomboy”. Carlson cartoons were released in 1968 and 1970.
Astrid Lindgren was showered with all sorts of awards during her lifetime. In 1958, she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen medal , which is equated with the Nobel Prize in children’s literature.
Personal life
Astrid Lindgren’s first love was unhappy. Her lover, the editor of the Vimmerby magazine, Axel Bloomberg, was married. The 17-year-old journalist became pregnant by a 30-year-old older man when he was getting a divorce. And if at the trial they learned that Bloomberg cheated on his wife Olivia, his bank account would be empty. Therefore, the pregnant Astrid left the city.
In Denmark, the name of the biological father was allowed to be kept secret, so the young woman gave birth to a boy, Lars, in Copenhagen. Until the age of 5, the child was brought up in the family of foster parents of the Stevens.
In Stockholm, Astrid met Niels Sture Lindgren. This meeting was a real miracle for her personal life. After the wedding in 1931, Lindgren took her son, and 3 years later she gave birth to a daughter, Karin. Niels adopted Lars and gave him his last name. The couple lived in a happy marriage for 21 years.
Death
In 1952, the writer’s husband died. In 1961, my mother passed away, and after 8 years, my father. The year 1974 turned out to be tragic for Astrid: her brother and childhood friends left forever. And real grief hit the woman in 1986, when her son died.
Lindgren often thought about the sacrament of going to another world, but, unlike her Lutheran parents, who believed in eternal life, she was a supporter of agnosticism. The writer died in January 2002 at a respectable age – at 94 years old. The reasons for the death of the writer turned out to be very natural: Astrid faded away day after day, and her departure was predictable for loved ones.
Memory
In the year of Astrid Lindgren’s death, the Swedish government established a 5 million kronor in memory of the famous writer, which is awarded every year to the best children’s writer. In 2016, it was presented to Briton Meg Rosoff.
In the spring of 2015, a new series of banknotes in denominations of 20 crowns was released, which depicts Astrid Lindgren. Her portrait took the place of Selma Lagerlöf. In total, more than 300 million banknotes and 2 billion coins were put into circulation, which was a record reissue of money for the national bank. In addition, images of Ingmar Bergman , Greta Garbo and other famous compatriots appeared on other banknotes.
The Swedes cherish the apartment in Stockholm, where the famous writer lived and died for 60 years. The home became a museum in the winter of 2015, when Sweden celebrated Astrid Lindgren’s 108th birthday. A souvenir dish is stored here, which was previously presented to Astrid by Boris Yeltsin . Here are photos from their meeting.
By the memorable date, the author’s military diaries were also released, which refer to the years of her biography from 1939 to 1945. On the eve of the 110th anniversary of the birth of the writer, work began on the drama “Being Astrid Lindgren”, which touched on the young years of the future writer.
The legacy of a celebrity today is monitored by her relatives. Great-grandson Johan knows the works of his grandmother by heart. This is necessary for him on duty: all the scripts for plays and films based on the fairy tales of the famous Swede pass through his hands. He makes sure that inappropriate jokes or political remarks do not fall into the text.
In Russia, Astrid remains one of the most beloved children’s writers. The 115th anniversary of her birth was celebrated not only in Moscow libraries, schools and universities, but also in the periphery. There were exhibitions, performances based on fairy tales, discussion clubs.
Bibliography
- 1945 – “Pippi settles in the Villa “Chicken”
- 1946 – “Pippi goes on the road”
- 1948 – “Pippi in the country of Veseliya”
- 1946 – “The famous detective Kalle Blomkvist”
- 1951 – “The famous detective Kalle Blomkvist takes risks”
- 1953 – “Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus”
- 1947 – “We are all from Bullerby”
- 1949 – “Again about the children from Bullerby”
- 1955 – “The Kid and Carlson, who lives on the roof”
- 1962 – “Carlson, who lives on the roof, has arrived again”
- 1968 – “Carlson, who lives on the roof, plays pranks again”
- 1963 – “Emil from Lenneberg”
- 1966 – “New tricks of Emil from Lenneberg”
- 1954 – Mio, my Mio
- 1981 – “Roni, the robber’s daughter”