The abandoned son and the love of a lesbian, a career in intelligence, and a ban in the U.S. – intriguing facts about the life of “Mama Carlson.”
Roots in Childhood
The author of the beloved trilogies about Carlson and Pippi Longstocking was born on the farmstead of Ness, near the town of Vimmerby in Småland – a picturesque province in Sweden. On November 14, 1907, she entered the world as the daughter of farmer Samuel August Eriksson and Hanna Jonsson.
Astrid (third from the left) with her parents and siblings
In a family of four children (three girls and an older boy), all of whom, as the writer ironically noted, survived despite complete freedom in play. The childhood adventures of Astrid Emilia Eriksson, her brother, and friends inspired many of the fairy tales she would later write and shaped her worldview. According to Lindgren, children should not be stopped from jumping off haystacks and woodpiles or climbing roofs and trees.
Scandalized Reputation
At 17, the rebel from patriarchal Vimmerby managed to “earn” her parents’ disapproval by showing up at a Lutheran community in a pantsuit and sporting a boyish haircut. But that was just the beginning of the surprises for her mom and dad.
Astrid Eriksson, 1924
After landing an internship at the local newspaper “Vimmerby Tidning,” she became pregnant by her boss. The father of her future child was 30 years her senior. At that time, the publication’s editor, Axel Gustav Reinhold Blomberg, was married and raising seven children. To avoid gossip, Astrid quit her job and went to give birth in neighboring Denmark, where single women could keep the father’s name a secret. “Until then, our family had an unblemished reputation; my religious parents condemned the birth of children out of wedlock, and here I was in this situation,” she wrote to a “friend in misfortune,” who also had to leave her baby with the same adoptive parents as Astrid. Born on December 4, 1926, her son Lars spent the first three years of his life in a foreign country and with strangers – in a foster family near Copenhagen, and these memories haunted Lindgren for the rest of her days.
Literary Material
In 1929, Astrid secured a secretarial position in Stockholm. Her new job at the Royal Automobile Club brought her a new suitor: two years later, the attractive employee married her boss, Nils Sture Lindgren. Immediately after their wedding, the couple took in Astrid’s son, and her husband gave the boy his surname. Later, the biological father also recognized the adopted child (Lars received his share of the inheritance).
Astrid Lindgren’s children
Before giving him a younger sister, Astrid made up for her previous absence by spending several years closely with her son. After marrying Lindgren, she gave birth to a daughter, Karin, on May 21, 1934, and the homemaker enriched her literary material: her own children inspired the plots for her stories. The tale of the foster family became literary material: the writer’s novel “Mio, My Mio!” (1954) tells the story of a child’s suffering in a foster home. In fact, the theme of childhood loneliness runs like a thread through all of the writer’s work.
On the Side of the Child
The author saw her creative mission as comforting children and was always on their side. However, society was not ready for such a perspective on children, and the first manuscript about the red-haired rascal Pippi Longstocking was rejected by the publisher Bonniers in 1944. Only after the author won a contest for the best reading for girls (another of her stories received second prize) did the publisher Rabén & Sjögren dare to print a run of “Pippi” a year later.
Manuscript of the book about Pippi Longstocking
The story of Longstocking revolutionized children’s literature. The image of a 9-year-old orphaned troublemaker, living with a monkey and a horse without parental constraints, fulfilling a child’s dream of total freedom, stood in stark contrast to the then-ideal of a virtuous girl. Yet, it was precisely what provoked protests from parents that attracted children: the absence of moralizing and admonitions. The author was the first to challenge the tradition of depicting a small hero as a “lesser being” in need of guidance. Astrid viewed life through the eyes of a child and was guided by the logic of their motives.
The writer at work
The popularity of such books among their intended audience led Lindgren to an editorial position: she remained at the publishing house that published her controversial work until retirement, releasing over eighty of her own works there. Meanwhile, Astrid’s stories faced censorship in France (the trilogy about Pippi and a book about domestic violence were published in edited versions) and were banned in the U.S. (in 17 states, the stories about the mischievous Carlson were deemed harmful to children’s upbringing and subversive to the authority of adults).
Shadows of the Past
Throughout her career, Lindgren became a millionaire: her income came from book sales and publishing rights, theatrical performances, adaptations of her works, public appearances, and record sales. However, since 1941, Astrid had not changed her five-room apartment in Stockholm, the address of which (Vulkanusgatan 12) was even mentioned in her fairy tales. At the same time, some details of the writer’s wartime biography only became known after the recent publication of her diaries from the 1940s: Astrid prepared analyses for the Swedish intelligence service. Her statements about the opposing sides in World War II surfaced, where Lindgren wished for Hitler’s victory, considering “the Russians” a greater evil for Sweden. She wrote that she wanted the Germans to “squeeze the Soviets” and expressed sympathy for German soldiers at Stalingrad. At the same time, Astrid condemned the crimes of the Nazis in 1943.
Astrid with her husband, 1960s
Correcting Society
The storyteller herself, according to her daughter, never joined the National Socialists, although in her youth she had voted for them. After the war, the writer joined the Social Democratic Party, to which she remained loyal throughout her life, sharing humanistic values. However, her trust in the political force did not prevent the activist from using the language of fairy tales to express her protest against the government’s fiscal pressure when she discovered a 102% income tax withholding in her accounting. The pacifist and humanistic ideas of the writer revolved around preventing violence, promoting peaceful coexistence, and ensuring a dignified life for all living beings. Thanks to Lindgren, Sweden legislated a ban on corporal punishment of children and passed a law for the protection of animals.
“Sometimes I Am Happy”
“Sometimes I feel happy, sometimes I don’t,” Lindgren said of herself. “But I am happy when I write.” After her husband’s death, the writer found joy in “the happiness of being alone,” when she could “focus on herself” and “arrange her life as she wished.” Astrid resolutely avoided men and women who encroached on her precious freedom. Her friendship with the writer Louise Hartung from Berlin was particularly challenging for the Swedish storyteller, as the two women had been friends for a long time. The German had a partner back home but never ceased trying to persuade her dear friend to become physically close. With her overflowing energy, Louise overwhelmed the reserved Astrid, and the writer needed considerable strength to explain her refusal to Hartung. Astrid also found unnecessary visits and meetings with fans exhausting. “I am tired of Astrid Lindgren,” she would say, shaking her head at her family’s advice to refuse more often: “The most time-consuming thing is to say ‘no’.”