Astrid Lindgren: The Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking by Jens Andersen & Caroline Waight

Author:Jens Andersen & Caroline Waight [Andersen, Jens & Waight, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Literary Figures, History, Modern, 20th Century, Europe, Scandinavia, Literary Criticism, Children's & Young Adult Literature
ISBN: 9780300226102
Google: LhlKDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0300226101
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2018-01-15T00:40:38.161000+00:00

The Danish Connection

The first five years of Astrid Lindgren’s career as an author were an explosion of artistic and commercial success. Three trilogies were launched: Pippi Longstocking, The Children of Noisy Village, and Bill Bergson, Master Detective. Counting the three short plays and two picture books she also found the time to write, Astrid Lindgren’s publications numbered sixteen by 1949. Meanwhile, nine of her books had been sold for publication in Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, and the United States, and many more such agreements were in the pipeline.

The majority of these foreign contacts in the 1940s were made through a literary agent in Denmark, Jens Sigsgaard, who had approached Astrid Lindgren in the spring of 1946, when the rumor that the world’s strongest girl was Swedish made it across Øresund. Sigsgaard, who had a degree in psychology, was headmaster of the Fröbel Training College in Copenhagen, a hardworking author of children’s books, and owner of the International Agency of Children’s Books (IAC), which he had founded at the end of the war. He not only functioned as Astrid Lindgren’s international outpost in the 1940s and early 1950s, a time when the European publishing industry had been blasted to smithereens and there was scarcely paper to print on, but proved an inspirational colleague and an exceptionally good friend. Correspondence spanning nearly fifty years testifies to their close relationship; today, their letters can be found at the national libraries in Copenhagen and Stockholm.

By the time they met, Sigsgaard was the author of several distinctive rhyme and picture books, including Palle Alone in the World (Palle alene i verden, 1942), which became a huge international success and ended up on Astrid’s bookshelf at Dalagatan. In Palle we meet a boy whose internal life in many ways resembles that of his contemporary Pippi Longstocking. One day he finds himself dreaming that he’s the only person left on earth. Palle can do whatever he wants, so he eats candy by the bucketload, drives a sports car, empties a bank, drives a fire engine with the sirens blaring, and takes a solo plane trip. But Palle also learns that the world is a dull place if you’re all alone, and the boy’s unrestricted freedom becomes a prison.

Illustrative of the mutually inspirational collaboration between Lindgren and Sigsgaard was an exchange of opinion in the fall of 1946, occasioned by his recommendation of Gyldendal’s offer to buy Confidences of Britt-Mari. On September 26, the author responded: “Of course I’ll accept Gyldendal’s offer, with pleasure and gratitude. . . . What are the chances of placing Pippi in America? Perhaps the book wouldn’t suit them there.”

Agent Sigsgaard in Copenhagen replied promptly: “Pippi Longstocking is in good hands in the USA with our new representative, Louise Seaman Bechtel. I’ve also just sent a copy of it to South Africa.”

At the beginning of her writing career, Astrid Lindgren drew heavily on Sigsgaard’s experience, frequently asking him for advice—in the fall of 1947, for instance, when she’d had several film offers for the Pippi Longstocking books.

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