Selma Lagerlöf

Selma Lagerlöf was born in Värmland in western Sweden, and was the fifth child out of six. Her parents were upper-class and her father was an alcoholic army lieutenant. In 1882 she attended a teachers’ college in Stockholm, and in 1885 became a teacher at a girls’ secondary school, where she liked to tell stories and parables to her students. In 1891 she published her first (and most popular) work, Gösta Berling’s Saga. In 1894 she met the writer Sophie Elkan, who became her close friend and possible lover. Lagerlöf went on to travel to Jerusalem (which inspired her book Jerusalem) and then several other countries, eventually giving up teaching and focusing on writing. Lagerlöf wrote prolifically, with her children’s book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils becoming especially popular, and also became an outspoken member of the women’s suffrage movement in Sweden. In 1909 she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Lagerlöf died in 1940, and remains one of the most beloved figures in Swedish literature.