Selma Lagerlöf

Selma Lagerlöf grew up on the family estate of Mårbacka in Värmland, Sweden. A hip problem left her with a limp. Her grandmother’s stories inspired her to write. She trained as a teacher and taught at a girls’ school.

Her first novel, “Gösta Berling’s Saga” (1891), full of Värmland legends, made her famous. Her book “The Wonderful Adventures of Nils” (1906–07), written as a geography book for Swedish schools, about a boy who travels across Sweden on the back of a goose, became a world classic. In 1909 she became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, and in 1914 the first woman elected to the Swedish Academy. With the prize money she bought back her family estate.

Lagerlöf never married. Her letters show deep love relationships with two women: the writer Sophie Elkan, with whom she travelled through Italy and the Middle East, and later the teacher and women’s rights activist Valborg Olander. These letters were published only decades after her death.

During the Second World War she helped the German Jewish writer Nelly Sachs escape to Sweden. Lagerlöf died at Mårbacka in 1940, aged 81.