Astrid Lindgren always remained that girl from Näs

During her lifetime, Astrid Lindgren received almost seventy-five thousand letters from fans all over the world. The creator of quirky characters such as Pippi Longstocking, the Lionheart Brothers and Ronja the Robber's Daughter was at least as quirky herself. The comprehensive biography This day, a lifetime.

Back to Näs, where Astrid Lindgren grew up and still lives on.

Play, play, play

As agile as she was herself, Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) gazes motionlessly at the typewriter that no longer holds paper. The bronze statue on the square in Vimmerby in which the Swedish writer is immortalised, opposite the Stadshotell where she loved to go dancing as a young girl, shows her in the austerity that characterised her life. No big house, no expensive possessions, her rich and vivid imagination were worth more to Astrid Lindgren.

Here in Vimmerby, or more precisely, nearby Näs, Astrid Ericsson (as her maiden name was) was born in 1907. The farm estate of Näs was the ideal setting for a mischievous child. It was an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the writer Atsrid Lindgren. In the garden of Näs, which is an Astrid Lindgren museum, for example, stands Pippi Longstocking's impressive and famous lemonade tree. Under its large umbrella of leaves a gnarled trunk so thick you can barely contain it even with three people. It watches over the garden surrounding the museum, the fields where Astrid spent her days playing, together with her little brother Gunnar and her two sisters. They climbed trees and walked on the roof, risking a death grip of about six metres.

If they were polite and kind, children were given a lot of freedom by their parents and sometimes jumped around the room like monkeys, from sofa to bed to chair. Besides, Astrid Lindgren still played as an adult: well into her sixties, she still climbed trees or the beams of a hay barn.

Girl from Näs

Näs and Vimmerby were the seeds for Lindgrens stories and characters. The children of Bolderburen was largely based on her own childhood. Anne-Marie was the model for Madieke, that of the red house in Prästgårdsgatan, and in the centre of Vimmerby, in Storgatan, stands the sweet shop where Pippi Longstocking went to buy eighteen kilos of sweets. Astrid lived there until she was nineteen and then moved to Stockholm, where she stayed for the rest of her long life. But she loved returning to Näs, remaining intimately connected to nature and the countryside. She herself said she always remained that girl from Näs.

Now visitors can see her birthplace. The little desk she worked on in the early 1970s still stands there The Lionheart Brothers wrote. The garden around the house and museum are equipped with all kinds of playground equipment and climbing frames, so children can romp there as much as she once did. In the nearby cemetery, Lindgren is buried with her parents, near her friend Anne-Marie. And just steps away from the large Romanesque cross above the grave of the two brothers Johan Magnus and Achates Phalen, which inspired her to The Lionheart Brothers.

 Young writetalent

This day, a lifetime describes the turbulent life of Astrid Lindgren, showing the writer in all her quirkiness and contradictions. She was only 13 when she wrote a school essay to the local newspaper Vimmerby Tidning made it. So it was no surprise that she got a job at the newspaper as an apprentice journalist at the age of 17. It was the roaring twenties and Astrid followed developments closely. One of the first girls in Vimmerby, she had her hair cut short, put on trousers, and went out dancing - to jazz, of course - dreaming of self-determination over her own body and life.

Pregnant

That only went slightly differently than she had imagined, because at 19 she turned out to be pregnant by her editor-in-chief. This Reinhold Blomberg, a man in his late forties, was still married. To minimise the embarrassment to her family, Astrid gave birth to son Lars (Lasse) in Copenhagen. She placed him with a foster mother there, while she herself left for Stockholm to work. These were harsh years: she suffered from hunger, was often lonely and felt guilty about the damage she did to her child, even though she sought out Lasse as often as she could. After a few years, she brought him to her parents in Näs, but mother and child were not permanently reunited until her marriage to Sture Lindgren, a few years later, with whom she had another daughter.

The complicated relationship between adults and children, the melancholy and loneliness she saw in her son, stubbornness and the urge for freedom - these are all ingredients from her own life that recur in many of her books and characters, such as Pippi, the mischievous Emiel from the Hazelhoeve, Karlsson from the roof or Ronja the Robber's Daughter. Not infrequently, they use fantasy as a weapon against the less fun aspects of life. Seriousness and play, melancholy and joy therefore go hand in hand in her work.

Smart businesswoman

All these extraordinary freebooters come to life in Astrid Lindgrens Värld, Astrid Lindgrens World, the theme park created by the author herself to allow children to play undisturbed. Wandering around Nangijala or Ronja's forest, children can let their imagination run wild. They should, because there is no roller coaster, merry-go-round or other instrumental entertainment in this amusement park for the little ones. No flat entertainment, but performances by Pippi and other romance characters, who involve their young audience. A park without advertisements, without brands, with healthy and tasty food and homemade sweets in bright colours.

The concept of the much-visited park was entirely conceived by the creator herself; Astrid Lindgren was a woman who knew what she wanted - and what not. Although she tinkered with other people's manuscripts at her publishing house as an editor, she herself did not allow any editorial interference with her own books. And while her success grew to immense proportions - she continued to live very modestly, by the way - she and her family kept a close eye on her business interests and decided for which (commercial) purposes her characters could and could not be used. And even today, her family watches over her legacy like a mother hen.

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Opinion writer

Later in life, Lindgren gradually developed into an increasingly influential opinion-making voice. While many loved ones passed away from her - her parents, husband, son, her friend Anne-Marie, a sister - she began to get more and more involved in the public debate on human rights, animal welfare and the environment. So it happened that, almost 70 now, she debuted as a political journalist and her articles in Express contributed to a political upheaval in Sweden. It only made Astrid Lindgren more popular - on her 70th, 80th and 90th birthdays alone, she received mailbags full of letters, cards, parcels and even love letters. The writer seemed to enjoy her authorship and public role. After all, as she herself said, "The short time you are here on earth, you have to fill with content.

This day, a life. The biography of Astrid Lindgren by Jens Andersen was published by Ploegsma.