Scandinavia’s best-loved children’s classic, from the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature A Penguin Classic Nils Holgersson is a naughty boy who tortures animals and never listens to his parents—until one day he wakes up as an elf. Deeply puzzled by his new status, he climbs on a gander’s back and flies away with him, joining a flock of wild geese. As he is carried around Sweden, Nils learns everything about birds, animals, his country and good behavior. Incredibly charming and poignant, The Wonderful Adventure of Nils Holgersson is a timeless classic loved by generations of children around the world.
About the Author
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (1858-1940) was a Swedish author. In 1909 she became the first woman to ever receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings". She later also became the first female member of the Swedish Academy.Born in the forested countryside of Sweden she was told many of the classic Swedish fairytales, which she would later use as inspiration in her magic realist writings. Since she for some of her early years had problems with her legs (she was born with a faulty hip) she would also spend a lot of time reading books such as the Bible.As a young woman she was a teacher in the southern parts of Sweden for ten years before her first novelGösta Berling's Sagawas published. As her writer career progressed she would keep up a correspondance with some of her former female collegues for almost her entire life.Lagerlöf never married and was almost certainly a lesbian (she never officially stated that she was, but most later researchers believe this to be the case). For many years her constant companion was fellow writer Sophie Elkan, with whom she traveled to Italy and the Middle East. Her visit to Palestine and a colony of Christians there, would inspire her to writeJerusalem, her story of Swedish farmers converting into a evangelical Christian group and travelling to "The American Colony" in Jerusalem.Lagerlöf was involved in both women issues as well as politics. She would among other things help the Jewish writer Nelly Sachs to come to Sweden and donated her Nobel medal to the Finnish war effort against the Soviet union.Outside of Sweden she's perhaps most widely known for her children's bookNils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige(The Wonderful Adventures of Nils).
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