astrid lindgren

SCANDINAVIAN astrid lindgren
LEGENDS
Lindgren’s passport, crammed with
stamps from her trips to Copenhagen.
She traveled back and forth to Denmark
for three years to visit her son Lasse.
mommie
dearest
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Scanorama november 2007
She was unmarried, unemployed, only 19 years old – and
pregnant with her boss’s child. That is what you
would call a rough start in life for ASTRID LINDGREN.
The 1920s wasn’t easy on a single mother, and the scandal
of her illegitimate child Lasse caused a great stir. But the
soon-to-be world famous writer was tough, and unlike
other women in the same predicament, didn’t
dump her son at an orphanage. Johan Erséus
reveals the dramatic story that inspired Lindgren to
create her best-selling children’s books.
S c a n o r a m a n o v e m b e r 2 0 0 7 3
T
he tale of the young mother and her little boy could
well have finished there. Almost every unmarried
young mother who found herself in a similar situation left her newborn in an orphanage or with adoptive
parents and then got on with her life. Heartbroken as they were
at being unable to care for their children, most were nevertheless forced to accept that the idea was totally unrealistic.
Lindgren, however, was different. She had no husband and not
even a boyfriend. She had no fixed address and no work when
Lasse, in 1930, enjoying the summer at Lindgren’s parents estate.
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Scanorama november 2007
berti l da ni el sson, ast rid’s ph oto a lbum, tomas oneborg & j onas ekströ mer/scanpix.
L
indgren had an idyllic childhood, not unlike that of
the children from Noisy Village (Bullerbyn) whom
she wrote about in her books. She grew up on Näs
Farm with her parents, Samuel August and Hanna,
and her siblings, Gunnar, Stina and Ingegerd. By the time she
left school at 16, Lindgren was already a talented writer and was
offered a post as an apprentice with the local newspaper Wimmerby Tidning. From the spring of 1924, she was busy accepting advertisements, reading proofs, and writing obituary notices, short news items and articles.
Two years later, her career as a journalist was over. She had
succumbed to the unrelenting flirtations of editor in chief Reinhold Blomberg – and was carrying his child. “Girls are such silly
creatures,” she explained many years later.
For the family at Näs – respected members of the community and regular churchgoers – their daughter’s pregnancy was a
heavy burden to bear: for the gossipmongers in the little provincial town, the news was an irresistibly juicy tidbit. Blomberg was
in love with Lindgren and wanted to marry her, but she refused.
She wasn’t the least interested in him. And on that point, she
enjoyed the full backing of her parents. “One accident in the family is more than enough” was her father Samuel August’s comment on the affair. It would be better for her to leave behind
the paradise of her childhood and seek an uncertain future in
Stockholm. Lindgren would have her baby, but with regard to
her future, that was all that she could be certain of when she bid
farewell to her family at the end of the summer. After a few weeks
at a home for mothers-to-be outside Jönköping, she came to the
Swedish capital and embarked on a secretarial course.
She moved into simple lodgings at the corner of Artillerigatan
and Kaptensgatan – where she later had the title character of
her Kati novels live. One comfort in this bleak existence was the
other country girls whom she lodged with and who were also trying to make their way in the big city.
Then, one day shortly before her baby was due, Lindgren read
an article about Eva Andén, a lawyer and champion of women’s
rights who had helped other pregnant girls. She met with Andén,
who listened to her story.
“But, my dear child, do you mean to say you’re all alone? Is
there really no one who can help you?”
Lindgren shook her head. Andén heaved an anxious sigh, but
promised to see to it that the young girl could have her baby at
the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, at that time the only hospital in Scandinavia that would deliver babies without passing on
details of the mother’s situation to the authorities. Andén would
also do what she could to find a good foster family in Denmark. A
month later, on November 21, 1926, the first stamp was entered
in Lindgren’s passport. On December 4, she gave birth to her son,
Lasse. And for almost three weeks after that, she was allowed
to live with the child’s future foster mother in Copenhagen and
spend time together with her beloved baby boy. The day before
Christmas Eve, she kissed Lasse farewell and, leaving him with
Mrs. Stevens in Brønshøj, returned home to her family.
previous sprea d: lasse’s photo album, jac ob forsell . t h is pag e: l asse’s ph oto album. next spread: jens assur, we jne lexius, jan delden & thorbjörn and ersson/ s can p ix
LEGENDS
O
n Saturday, October 30, 1926, Astrid Lindgren
stepped into the police station in Stockholm,
paid nine kronor and signed for her first passport. The photo shows a young woman with
short, wavy hair. The written details record
that she was 165 centimeters tall, with blue
eyes, 18 years of age and unmarried.
But the little gray book said nothing about her being alone
and unhappy in the big city, that she was eight months pregnant, that the baby’s father was a man more than 30 years her
senior whom she no longer wanted anything to do with, or that
she needed the passport to travel to Denmark to give birth to
a son that she herself had not the remotest possibility of looking after.
Over the next three years, the increasingly well-thumbed
passport would be filled with red and blue exit and entry stamps
– every one of them from her train journeys between Stockholm
and Copenhagen.
There is no doubt that adult life could have begun more simply for this farmer’s lass from Vimmerby in Småland, who one
day would create Pippi Longstocking and become one of the
world’s most widely read writers of children’s books. The experiences of those late teenage years would forever leave their
mark on Lindgren and her writing.
Far left: Lindgren and her children, Lasse and Karin, at
the piano. Left: Serving as a secretary at the
International Grand Prix race in Sweden in 1933.
she returned to live in Stockholm. She had only recently turned
19 and was in lodgings in a strange city. But she was determined
never, never to turn her back on Lasse. By January 12, she was
already back with him in Copenhagen. She spent 10 days with
Mrs. Stevens, who was clearly a very good foster mother and
who, in addition to a son of her own, also had another Swedish
foster child, Esse.
Back in Stockholm, Lindgren completed her secretarial training. She had become a proficient shorthand typist and applied
for a position as “a dedicated typist” with a secretarial company.
Summoned to her first interview, she thought, “Now I’ll show
them!” and, without even a glance at the keyboard, swiftly began
to type out the test piece. It was only after the first line that she
realized she had placed her fingers one row too high on the keys.
The result was a sentence that made no sense – and no job.
She did, however, find a position with a publishing company,
Svenska bokhandelscentralen, as private secretary to Torsten
Lindfors, the manager for radio sales (and father of the future
Hollywood actress Viveca Lindfors, for whom Lindgren would
write her first story). Lindfors was skeptical at first. He didn’t
like the idea of employing 19-year-olds: they only got themselves
pregnant or left in a hurry to seek fame elsewhere, as his previous secretary had done, the singer Zarah Leander. Lindgren
assured him that she was an unusually mature 19-year-old.
The salary was 150 kronor a month. Her rented accommodation cost 100 kronor, and even if she could share her rooms
with a friend, it would be difficult to make ends meet. Lindgren
couldn’t afford to waste a single penny. Tram tickets and visits to
a cafe or the cinema were unnecessary luxuries. The city library
offered the prospect of a free excursion, and sometimes the girls
arranged simple get-togethers in Lindgren’s room, where they
amused themselves with fancy-dress parties or simply talked
about men.
Above right: The Lindgrens sunbathing in the
archipelago, mid-1930s.
Right: Lindgren and
Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria always had
a mutual understanding and enjoyed each
other’s company. Here
they are chatting during
the ceremony to celebrate when Lindgren
received the International Swede of the Year
award in 1997. Bottom:
With Russia’s president
Boris Yeltsin. Lindgren
had a huge impact on
the political scene in
Sweden, but she was
also an international
celebrity who impressed
the world’s leaders.
D
uring her years in lodgings, Lindgren was constantly hungry: it was not surprising that the Norwegian
Knut Hamsun’s book Hunger (Sult) was among her
favorite reading. Salvation came in the form of regular food packages from Näs. In her letters home, she heaped
praise on the bread, the sausage, the butter and the cheese from
the farm with the same fervor she was to display in her descriptions of the mountains of Christmas fare in the stories about
Emil from Lönneberga many years later.
Other letters reveal the hardships she had to endure. To
her brother Gunnar, she wrote, “I feel lonely and poor. Lonely
S c a n o r a m a n o v e m b e r 2 0 0 7 5
LEGENDS
Top left: “Now, you stop skinheading,” Lindgren told this young man. Right: She
had her very own way of communicating with children. Bottom left: Together
with actress Inger Nilsson, who played Pippi Longstocking in the films. Below:
After finally finding the play-button, Lindgren enjoys a freestyle in 1987.
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Scanorama november 2007
S c a n o r a m a n o v e m b e r 2 0 0 7 7
Posing with little Lasse in
Stockholm in 1930.
Moves to Stockholm
and starts a secretarial
course. Her son Lasse
is born in Copenhagen,
where he lives with his
foster mother
1926
1907
Born as Astrid
Anna Emilia
Ericsson at
Näs Farm in
Vimmerby on
November 14
1924
Starts
work as an
apprentice
journalist on
Wimmerby
Tidning
1930
Brings Lasse
home to Sweden.
For the first year,
he lives with his
grandparents,
Samuel August
and Hanna at Näs
1934
1931
Marries Sture
Lindgren, office
manager at the
Royal Swedish Automobile Club. Leaves
secretarial work to
become a housewife
Sture and Astrid Lindgren in the 1930s.
8
Employed by the
Swedish Intelligence
Service’s Bureau
of Censorship, and
spends WWII
reading letters
Lindgren devoted herself wholeheartedly to the role of mother and housewife. She wasn’t satisfied to sit on the park bench
with the other mothers, but took an active part in Lasse’s and
Karin’s games, climbing trees with them and ripping her skirt
on the slides.
In 1944, at the age of 36, she published her first book. And then
the following year, Pippi Longstocking turned her life – and the
story of children’s literature – upside down. For 40 more years,
the stories flowed from her shorthand pads and her typewriter.
She stuck to subjects and settings she was familiar with: childhood in the countryside, life in small provincial towns, summer
in the skerries, loneliness in the big city.
As a voice in the public debate, she sided with many causes in
society – but nothing captured her attention like children. Right
up to her death, in 2002, she was always equally distressed and
incensed every time she heard of children who were made to suffer. She endeavored to help by writing articles, donating money,
influencing decisions – but she always felt that her contributions
were inadequate.
Even in her dreams, Lindgren was frequently surrounded by
vulnerable children in need of help, care and attention. It is a
constant, if unconscious, theme in her work. Actually, it was
Awarded the
Gold Medal of the
Swedish Academy
(although, to the
disappointment
of many people,
never the Nobel
Prize).
Writes about her own
childhood fun and
games in the books
about Noisy Village
(Bullerbyn)
1947–52
1940
1945
Pippi
Longstocking
is published
and becomes
an enormous
success
1946
Employed as an editor of
children’s books and, for
the next 24 years, makes
a huge contribution
to Swedish children’s
literature. Bill Bergson,
Master Detective is
published (Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist)
Scanorama november 2007
Lindgren’s biographer, Margareta Strömstedt, who pointed out
to her that all the girls who play the leading roles in her stories
– girls like Pippi Longstocking, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter and
Meg (Madicken) – are strong females with the same strong ties
to their fathers as Lindgren herself had to her own father, Samuel August.
For the boys, on the other hand, the opposite is true. They are
almost always lonely in some way and weak – like the bedridden
Göran who flies to Twilight Land with Mr Lilybroom (Herr Liljonkvast), the sickly Bertil who meets Simon Small (Nils Karls-
She took an active part in Lasse’s and Karin’s games,
climbing trees with them and ripping her skirt on the slides.
Little Kerstin in Noisy Village.
The original Pippi Longstocking script.
Daughter Karin is
born. Moonlights
during the ’30s
by writing fairy
tales for Christmas
magazines
had been something of a pioneer in bringing home her “innocent son” to a small country town where “people weren’t used
to unmarried mothers walking around with their children as if
they were miracles equally as great as any other child.”
For the hard-working office girl, a secure home was now just
around the corner. In May 1928, she had taken a job as a secretary with the Royal Swedish Automobile Club in Stockholm. The
office manager, Sture Lindgren, had taken a shine to her and they
were married at Näs in the spring of 1931. Three years later, their
daughter Karin was born.
thanks to jeppe wikström and max ström publishing house
Lindgren had first got to know Gun at the maternity home outside Jönköping. Gun’s daughter now lived in an orphanage in
Småland. For Lindgren, it was impossible to forget her own child
for even a minute, so she could not for the life of her understand
why Gun never visited the girl. In the end, Lindgren herself went
to see her. It was a visit she would never forget.
When she recalled the incident many years later, she was still
indignant over the dreary, dilapidated state of the orphanage and
the pervading air of gloom. The smell was unbearable, and the
children were frightened, distressed and dispirited at the same
time as they mobbed her in sheer desperation to beg for candy.
The contrast to Mrs. Stevens’ home where Lasse was living was
startling. Even though it broke her heart to have her son so far
away, it was a comfort to know that he was well looked after.
Shortly before Christmas 1929, Lindgren received news that
Mrs. Stevens had suddenly taken ill and could no longer care for
Lasse. At the same time, Lindgren had developed toxic goiter and
was about to be operated on. There was no question of her dashing off to Copenhagen. Lasse meanwhile was taken in by Mrs.
Stevens’ sister who ran a home for elderly ladies, and he spent his
nights sleeping on an armchair in the common room. After her
operation, Lindgren again visited Copenhagen and realized at
once that she must bring Lasse back to Sweden, despite the fact
that she had neither a home nor a babysitter to look after him.
She returned to Stockholm, and one month later, Lasse joined
her there for the first time, with his 16-year-old Danish foster
brother as his traveling companion.
During the days, while Lindgren was at work, the landlady
kept an eye on Lasse and made sure he was fed. But the nights
were worst. The three-year-old developed whooping cough, and
neither he nor his mother could sleep. Even so, these days were
among the happiest in Lindgren’s 22-year-old life. At last, she
had brought her son home.
At Näs, Samuel August and Hanna welcomed little Lasse as if
he were the prodigal son when he came to live with them. Lindgren had noted that the scandal of her illegitimate child had
caused a great stir in the conservative Vimmerby. However, she
and her family could no longer care two hoots about the gossip. She traveled from the station in an open carriage and proudly showed off her son. Many years later, she claimed that she
left page: astrid’s phot album, ©ingrid vang nyman/saltkråkan ab, jacob forsell. r ight page : ©ilon wik lan d, s can p ix
LEGENDS
because I am, and poor because the only possessions I have are
a few small Danish coins. I dread the thought of what winter
might bring.”
Outwardly, Lindgren always put on a bold front. But she was
constantly plagued by her longing for Lasse: that was worse than
all her other privations. Her memories of this time never faded:
“The years I couldn’t spend with my child were terribly painful.
I’ve always had such a strong maternal instinct, and I loved that
little lad of mine to distraction.”
Against all the odds, she managed to scrape together enough
money to visit Lasse seven times before his first birthday in
1927. The cheapest return ticket on the night train to Copenhagen cost almost 50 kronor. Often she had to borrow the last few
kronor from her friends or visit the pawnshop before she could
afford her ticket.
The train journey – with a steamboat connection across the
sound – took almost 14 hours each way. If she could get a day off
on Saturday, she would catch the 8.15 evening train from Stockholm and arrive at Copenhagen’s Central Station just before 10
the following morning. That gave her almost a day and a half with
Lasse, valuable hours into which she crammed so much that the
little boy could scarcely sleep afterward. Lindgren would arrive
back in Stockholm at four minutes to nine on Monday morning
and could be at work just a few minutes later.
One spring Saturday in 1928, Lindgren had not had the opportunity to ask for time off but sneaked away a few hours early –
only for her absence to be discovered by the senior manager. She
arrived in Copenhagen at midnight, spent an intensive Sunday
with Lasse, collapsed into her seat on the night train, raced to
work the following morning – and was promptly sacked!
By then, she had moved from Artillerigatan and was living
with a friend, Gun, in an expensive but inhospitable room that
the landlady had emptied of so much furniture that it most
resembled “a military hospital.” Gun was another of the poor
office girls, a sister in misfortune with whom Lindgren maintained contact for the rest of her life. It wasn’t until she compared her own childhood with the conditions under which Gun
and her sister-in-law, Lecka, had grown up that Lindgren realized for the first time how truly wonderful her years at home had
been – and she immediately wrote to thank her parents.
1957
The start of collaboration with the
director Olle Hellbom; together they
make almost two
dozen films and a
TV series
1971
1963
Elected as a member of the Swedish
literary academy,
Samfundet De Nio.
Writes her first
book about Emil,
which is based on
her father Samuel
August’s childhood
S c a n o r a m a n o v e m b e r 2 0 0 7 son Pyssling), the bored Midge (Lillebror) who befriends Karlson-on-the-Roof, the dying Scotty Lionheart (Skorpan) and his
older brother, Jonathan. Other boys are also vulnerable and in
need of a father figure: Emil and the farmhand, Alfred; Rasmus
and the vagabond, Paradise-Oscar; and not least the little boy in
Mio, My Mio who finds his father, the King.
L
indgren herself had not noticed these patterns, but
with hindsight, it is easy to see how the whole of her
written production was colored by the memory of a
fatherless little boy who had once been given away in
Copenhagen.
After Lindgren’s death, in a writing desk by the window in her
Stockholm apartment that still remains just as it did that day,
someone found an envelope with a photograph of Lasse as a baby
and his foster brother, Esse. Fixed to the photograph was a lock
of Lasse’s baby hair. And underneath the envelope was the passport with all those exit and entry stamps to Denmark – put aside,
but not forgotten.
JOHAN ERSÉUS is a journalist and author living in Stockholm. He has written
extensively about Astrid Lindgren’s life and work. [email protected]
Writes the saga of
Pomperipossa, who
pays 102 percent in tax.
The ensuing debate is
instrumental in costing
the ruling Social Democrat party victory in the
election
1976
Awarded the Peace
Prize of the German
Book Trade, and
speaks out passionately against all
forms of violence
1978
1986
Son Lasse
dies
The crew from
the Saltkråkan TV
series. The dog,
Båtsman, became
a celebrity in
his own rite.
Voted “International Swede of the
Year” in the year of
her 90th birthday.
Also retires from
public life
1997
1994
Awarded the
Right Livelihood Honorary
Award for her
dedication to
the rights of
children and
animals
2002
Dies on 28
January in
her home in
Stockholm,
aged 94
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