The Modern Novel

Biography

Sara Lidman was born in Missenträsk, 3 kilometers from the land border between Lapland and Västerbotten, in 1923. She grew up on a small farm. She contracted tuberculosis and spent some time in a sanatorium, where she read a lot. She studied at the University of Uppsala. She married a doctor the same time as she published her first book, Tjärdalen [The Tar Still], but then had an affair with the writer, Ivar Lo-Johansson. In 1960-61, she spent some time in South Africa, where she got to know Nadine Gordimer. Because of her relationship with the black politician Peter Nthite , she was nearly sent to prison and only managed to escape a sentence because of the intervention of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, on condition she left South Africa, never to return.

She took up other causes such as opposition to the Vietnam War and opposition to nuclear weapons. She moved back to her home town in the 1970s. She wrote some twenty novels, often about her home region, as well as articles and plays. She died in 2004.

Books about Sara Lidman

Birgitta Holm: Sara Lidman – i liv och text (in Swedish)

Other links

Sara Lidman
Sara Lidman
Sara Lidman
Sara Lidman (in Swedish)
Sara Lidman (in Swedish)