Selma Lagerlöf
Selma LagerlöfI Want To Set the World in Motion
Anna-Karin PalmA definitive and vital portrait of the Nobel Prize-winning author—over 30,000 copies sold to date!
Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940) was revered by readers, lauded by critics, and loved around the world. Behind the public image of the Nobel Prize-winner we find a brave, unapologetic woman with audacious plans for her future, and a staunch defender of women’s rights.
Anna-Karin Palm renders Lagerlöf’s life with the skill and appreciation of a literary author, viewing Selma’s own set of ideas and rich inner life as the keystone of her celebrated authorship. In this detailed and lyrical biography, Palm depicts Lagerlöf’s important female friendships, the struggle for women’s emancipation and right to vote—the burning questions of the time. The struggles and doubts of any artist are present in the author’s life, but so too are the unwavering self-confidence and the strong dedication of a woman who forged her own path, both in life and in literature.
Selma Lagerlöf: I want to set the world in motion brings Lagerlöf vividly to life, providing a fascinating insight into the life of an author who is still able to set the world in motion today, a hundred years later.
Winner of De Nio Society’s Lotten Kraemer Award 2019
Nominated for The August Prize for Non-Fiction 2019
Nominated for the Stora Fackbokspriset 2019
Nominated for DN Culture Prize 2020
Recipient of Albert Bonniers stipend 2019
#1 Non-Fiction title for Dagens Nyheter for 15 weeks
‘Brilliant portrait of an unexpected rebel…Anna-Karin Palm beautifully switches between the person and author…But maybe perhaps most importantly, Selma is finally freed from the role of an artistically-naïve fairytale lady.’
—Dagens Nyheter
‘One of the many virtues of Palm’s biography is that it sheds new light over the tight-knit community of female intelligentsia that became so important for Selma Lagerlöf’s authorship…An indispensable read in 2019, the year of democracy’
—Göteborgs-Tidningen
