A World Gone Mad

One of the twentieth century's greatest children's writers - the creator of Pippi Longstocking - reveals her very personal experience of the Second World War.

Before she became internationally known for her children's books, Astrid Lindgren was an aspiring author living in Stockholm with her family at the outbreak of the Second World War. These diaries, until recently stored in a wicker laundry basket in her Dalagatan home, offer a civilian, a mother, and an aspiring writer's unique account of a world devastated by conflict.

In these diaries Lindgren emerges as a morally courageous critic of violence and war, as well as a deeply sensitive and astute observer of world affairs. She provides insights into the Soviet invasion of Finland and the ambiguities of Swedish neutrality, and asks questions about the nature of evil, and our capacity, as individuals, to stand against such malevolent forces.

Alongside political events, Lindgren includes delightful vignettes of domestic life: shortages of butter, blackouts, dinner menus and children's birthdays, and moving descriptions of her marriage. And these diaries also reveal her emergence as a writer: the bedtime stories she invented for her daughter during this terrible period eventually became Pippi Longstocking, among the most famous and beloved children's books of the twentieth century.

Posthumously published in Sweden to great acclaim, and now available in English, illustrated with family photographs, Lindgren's diaries provide a personal and vivid chronicle of Europe at war.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Translated by Sarah Death

ASTRID LINDGREN (1907-2002) is the third most translated writer for children (after Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm), and her books have sold more than 160 million copies worldwide. She became famous in her country almost overnight, with the publication of the first Pippi Longstocking books in 1945, and was awarded numerous honours, including the Hans Christian Andersen medal and the Gold Medal of the Swedish Academy in 1971.

SARAH DEATH is a British translator of Swedish and Finland-Swedish to English. She has translated over thirty-five books by renowned authors including Tove Jansson, Selma Lagerlöf, Astrid Lindgren and Kerstin Ekman. She has won the George Bernard Shaw Prize three times and was awarded Sweden's Royal Order of the Polar Star in 2014.

KARIN NYMAN is a translator and children's author and Astrid Lindgren's daughter.

'Sensitive, wide-ranging and offers a rare Scandinavian perspective on the catastrophe of the Nazi war' Wall Street Journal

'Lindgren's diaries show a compassionate and curious woman trying to fathom the horrors of war through her writing, and leaving behind a wonderful insight into life during a global conflict' The National

'The diaries make for crisp, painful and perspective-refreshing reading' Spectator