Jens Andersen

Have loved Astrid Lindgren, ever since reading the magical Bullerby Children aged 8, but knew nothing about her.
This extremely vivid, readable biography takes her from growing up in the 20s to a strict, religious farming family; a happy childhood, first job as a local reporter...then disaster after falling pregnant by her older, married boss. One feels much of the sadness that comes through in her work emanates from the child's first years (born and fostered out in Copenhagen to avoid show more detection, with only occasional visits.)
Marriage meant that she eventually recovered her son; meanwhile her writing was taking off, notably with Pippi Longstocking - a cheerful tale in the gloomy post-War years. And meanwhile Lindgren was gaining international acclaim (and censure); was facing family problems and becoming involved in politics...
Read the whole book in a day as it's fascinating! show less

A well written biography of Astrid Lindgren who curiously never received a Nobel prize despite its Swedish bias and her excellent connections in the Swedish publishing world. I found it very fascinating to read how rural, conservative and poor Sweden still used to be at the start of the 20th century. Astrid Lindgren starts out as a precocious local journalist impregnated by her married boss. The child is born in the more open city of Copenhagen, supportive of unwed mothers. Lindgren has to show more endure hard years as a typist/secretary in Stockholm who only from time to time is able to afford visiting her son growing up in Copenhagen. The situation improves when she marries her new boss who directs the Swedish car driver association. Working as a reporter and later censor in WWII, Lindgren finds her calling as an author of fairy tales and invents her first star character of Pippi Longstocking.

Pippi owes its publication to a happy championship and incestuous protectionism in the Swedish publishing industry. The book's editor is also its chief reviewer and sits in the jury awarding it the Swedish children's book prize of the year and pushing it via a radio and print marketing campaign. Never, however, has a character been more deserving of such shady promotion. Pippi was a perfect expression of the social change happening in post-WWII Sweden. Based on the success of Pippi, Astrid Lindgren became a volcano of characters and stories based on both her rural childhood and more modern urban life.

In the third phase of her life, Astrid Lindgren turned political (which probably cost her the Nobel prize). Receiving a 102% marginal tax rate, she turned the heat up against the reigning Social Democrats. Deep down, her ideals were based on the fairly conservative rural life not the standardizing and modernizing cities. Her clear opposition to industrial agriculture and the fight for animal protection relied on the personal bond to the named farm animals not the anonymous suffering objects of agri-business. A great story about a wonderful storyteller and marketer. show less

Like the other English reviewer below, I first discovered Astrid Lindgren through all About the Bullerby Children (also known in English translation as The Children of Noisy Village), an omnibus collection of short stories published by Puffin Books, about a group of Swedish children who live in the same farming community and play together. I also read Lindgren's most famous stories, the Pippi Longstocking trilogy. Both trilogies were published at and just after the end of World War II. A few show more years later I read The Brothers Lionheart, a more serious novel perhaps aimed at slightly older children/teenagers and published in 1973. I have only realised as an adult that these books were just a few of more than 30 children's books by Astrid Lindgren, and acquired a couple more.

This biography by Jens Andersen, published in Denmark in 2014, is apparently the first study of Astrid Lindgren to be published in English translation by Caroline Waight. It is published by Yale University Press and offers a detailed account of Astrid Lindgren's long life, the conflicts between expectations of a woman in early 20th century Sweden and her own aspirations, and how she dealt with becoming an unmarried mother at 19, establishing and continuing a career and the emotional needs of her children, herself and others.

I was really interested in this story of Astrid Lindgren's life and work. The writing style, or the translation, is very clear and readable, and the life story is fascinating. Astrid Ericsson left school at 15 to become a trainee journalist on the local newspaper, but her initial success was interrupted by an unexpected pregnancy. She found a foster family in Copenhagen, Denmark, to take care of baby Lasse for a few years and started a new relationship, and by 1931, she had brought Lasse back to Stockholm and married Sture Lindgren. In 1934, she had a daughter, Karin. She had claimed she had no intention of being a writer but did publish a few magazine stories, and finally some stories she had been telling her daughter became a book for her daughter's 10th birthday in 1944, and a year later were published as the first volume of Pippi Longstocking.

In 326 pages, Jens Andersen describes Astrid Lindgren balancing literary success and family life with a busy day job editing children's books by other authors, growing fame and a huge correspondence with readers that came with it. She became an important public figure whose views on real children as well as those she wrote about were taken seriously. So were her other political views and actions.

This book is a hardback, printed on very good quality paper. It is illustrated with black and white photographs throughout the text. Most of these appear to be the Lindgren family's own pictures, but some are not - there is no separate list of photographic/other illustrations or credits. There is a short list of selected English titles only of books by Astrid Lindgren published between 1944 and 2007 - it is not clear whether publication dates are original, or English language, or where books were published. The bibliography, Sources, is of titles in Swedish, or possibly other Scandinavian languages, as the author is Danish - but this is not obvious. The index includes significant people in Astrid Lindgren's life, many of her well known books, and illustration listings in italics. I expect all these decisions were made by publishers who wanted to keep the book accessible to general non-fiction readers.

Overall, an interesting book, and I would love to be able to consult it while rereading/reading some of the author's work, but am returning it to the library for now. show less

An interesting story of a business we think we know about. I learned some new things about the company and the family owners' histories, but found that the book tread a little lightly on some of the business challenges over the years.