Beyond Pippi: How Astrid Lindgren’s work resonates across cultures

Astrid Lindgren is undeniably considered to be one of Sweden’s greatest national treasures. As one of the most widely read children’s authors in the world, her books have sold over 165 million copies worldwide and her work has been translated into over 100 languages.

Not only is she the creator of classic characters of the Swedish literary canon such as Pippi Longstocking, Emil of Lönneberga, Ronia The Robber’s Daughter and The Brothers Lionheart, she was also an activist, opinion-maker and beloved defender of children’s rights.

Her life’s work spans beyond the page and her portrayal of Swedish life continues to influence both those born and raised in the country, as well as those for whom Sweden has become a new home.

Born on 14 November 1907, Astrid Lindgren had a rural upbringing in a village in Småland, the memories of which shaped the settings for many of her early books. In her teenage years, she started rejecting the narrow-mindedness of her small town - the beginnings of a rebellious streak that subsequently enriched much of her writing. Fiercely democratic and hating classist economic and societal structures, at 18, she moved to Stockholm, where she lived until her death in 2002. At her funeral procession through the Swedish capital, over 100,000 Swedes, whether foreign-born or citizens since birth, gathered in the streets to mourn her passing and pay their respects.

Astrid Lindgren’s literary career began in the early 1940s, and the character for which she is best known, Pippi Longstocking, was named in 1941 by Astrid’s own daughter, Karin. While sick at home, Karin requested a story from her mother about the funny-sounding name, leading to an improvised and interesting tale. To quote Astrid, “because it was a strange name, it had to be an equally strange girl”. She continued to make up stories for her children and friends, and Pippi was eventually introduced to the rest of the world in 1945, just as World War II came to an end. During the preceding years, Lindgren’s more personal writing had consisted largely of her own war diaries, documenting the events of the war and recounting her daily life, including her work of censoring mail for Sweden’s Special Intelligence Agency. But with the success of Pippi, Astrid was able to dedicate herself to writing full-time, prolifically producing six books between 1944 and 1946, and laying the foundations on which she would build her unique literary legacy.

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The strength of that legacy is partly due to the jovial settings she created in her books - and how she wrote of Sweden as a place that is welcoming, nostalgically ideal and values-led. In the worlds she constructed in her books, the protagonists - often children - explore their own moral compasses to guide the reader, all while facing and growing from their own personal challenges.

The manner in which Lindgren wrote about Swedish villages and cities was equal parts familiar, idealistic and hopeful, resulting in distinctly Lindgren-esque settings. In many of her earliest books, she paints sceneries of thick forests, lively farmsteads and wholesome countryside life, and while these may now appear to be a falsely idealised view of life in rural Sweden, it must be remembered that at the time of writing, they were not as unrealistic as they may be perceived in more modern times. Her works are a great cultural introduction to the Sweden of yesteryear, and, combined with her reliable representation of Sweden as a continuously open and democratic society, it is no wonder that her books have been said to “keep the dream of Sweden alive”.

And it is perhaps this combination that makes Lindgren’s work so irresistibly significant, both ongoingly as a standard part of Swedish life, as well as to those from other nationalities who now call Sweden home. For many people who come to live in Sweden from another country, Lindgren’s works provide a compass for understanding Sweden’s cultural heritage and landscapes. Her books have been heralded as a popular way for immigrants to learn the Swedish language. They offer the reader an opportunity to immerse themself in stories that not only capture the country’s literary heritage, but also showcase multifaceted tales that go far deeper than their categorisation as children’s books might have you believe.

As a tool for learning the Swedish language, Lindgren’s books are the perfect choice, in that they contain Swedish places and names, as well as realistic dialogue from the mouths of children and adults. And thanks to the wide range of settings in Lindgren’s books, the reader is even shown different linguistic structures - whether regional dialects such as those from Småland in The Children of Noisy Village, the upper middle-class tones in Madicken, or the Stockholm vernacular in Karlsson on the Roof.

Her books also introduce the reader to Swedish foods and customs. From the country-style home cooking (“husmanskost”) in the Emil books that are set around the turn of the last century, to the lavish, French-inspired feasts presented in 1920s Madicken and, of course, Pippi making those signature holiday season cookies - pepparkakor - by rolling out the dough right on the kitchen floor, Lindgren shows Sweden’s rich tapestry of traditions and foods across its own historical class and land divides.

As these aspects are all rolled into entertaining storylines - often with several books following one central character - it is no surprise that they are a popular way for immigrants to learn more about Sweden in an enjoyable format. And even beyond the possibility of reading her books in the Swedish language, Lindgren is also so widely translated around the world that, according to the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), she is the 18th most translated author in the world. Which has helped to cement a truly global appreciation of her work beyond the confines of Scandinavian borders.

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Not only is Lindgren recognisable to all Swedes - literally, as her face adorns Sweden’s 20 SEK banknote - but her books are familiar and valued by many for reasons as individual as the numerous characters she has created. She invented characters that dare to stand up for what is right, for themselves as well as for others, and in her books, children who question authority are not merely nuisances, but worthwhile individuals. They are beings who have the right to think for themselves and are, in the best sense of the word, fully entitled to find the strength of their own voice. And so, for anyone from a foreign country who arrives in Sweden and may be seeking recognition and belonging, Lindgren’s staunchly pro-individual ethos of “it’s ok to be you” is a welcome philosophy, as it is to anyone from a marginalised community who may be seeking validation that their self or “otherness’ is not only acknowledged, but encouraged.

Lindgren’s books are fictional but moving accounts of the fight between good and evil - they speak of courage, of overcoming fear, and of love and death. And as a bonus of her impressively prolific output, there really is something for every reader to connect with, ranging from the more lighthearted escapades and mischievous, childish activities of protagonists such as those in Lotta on Troublemaker Street and Emil, to the more somber narratives and personal struggles found in Ronia The Robber’s Daughter, The Brothers Lionheart or Mio, my Son.

Just as Pippi was, at the time, a convention-defying trailblazer who helped to redefine what a role model could be for a whole generation of girls, Astrid was a provocateur who used her voice to stand against oppression and injustice. In real life, as in her writing, she resolutely opposed any ideologies that she found to be tyrannical. An attribute which, understandably, provides an additional level of solidarity that may resonate with asylum seekers in Sweden, both young and old, and with anyone who has fled persecution or a place where their individual freedoms were under threat.

Her innate fight to defend all children’s rights to freedom, love and safety - especially the rights of vulnerable or neglected children who have had to flee hardship - can be found in many of her boy-protagonist led stories. In Mio, my Son, a young lonely boy flees Stockholm in search of his father and ends up in an imaginary, faraway land where he is destined to fight a cruel knight. The central character in Rasmus On the Road is a lonely orphan who runs away to try to find someone who will choose him, really see him and love him. The frightened boys in The Brothers Lionheart are given no choice but to face their overwhelming fears, fight their internal struggles and find the courage to liberate a land from its evil dictator.

These are just a few examples of how Lindgren manages to create narratives full of political and moral undertones, with meanings far beyond the sometimes made-up worlds in which the actions take place. And by natural extension of her instinctive drive to defend the less powerful, these stories all share the same message of Lindgren’s: that children have basic human rights which must be met. She says they are fundamentally entitled not only to food and shelter, but also to respect, care, love, security and play - all of which Lindgren makes clear that adults are obliged to provide.

And even since her passing, these ethos live on in the legacy activities that the Lindgren-run family company maintains. The Pippi of Today initiative, for example, is a programme developed in partnership between The Astrid Lindgren Company and Save The Children to support access to skills, education and safety for girls on the move and in refugee camps. As girls make up an especially vulnerable group among asylum seekers - and the number of girls on the move has not been this high since the end of the Second World War, when Pippi was created - it is a particularly relevant way for Pippi to be a symbol of female strength and resilience for today’s generation of displaced girls. Similarly, the company collaborated with the Swedish Migration Agency and Save the Children to distribute thousands of Arabic language copies of Astrid Lindgren’s The Red Bird to Arabic-speaking refugee children in Sweden. As the company’s head of publishing said, “The children who come to Sweden as refugees should be made to feel welcome and should have the opportunity, through good children’s books in their own language, to understand the place they’ve come to. All children’s equal value and right to culture were basic standards to Astrid Lindgren”.

While Astrid’s books reflect the values and views of a true champion of the rights of the individual, it was first when she retired from her fiction writing that she took up a more active role in fighting real-life injustices. At the age of 70, when most might start retreating from arduous activities, she took her first big and impactful steps into the world of public debate and politics. Her humanism and explicit solidarity with society’s most vulnerable started to come in the form of direct language from her own pen and voice. Once she understood that her name and popularity afforded her a platform from which she could do good, she became even more vocal about issues close to her heart. Her explosive debut in 1976 was a letter in the national newspaper about Sweden’s taxation policy. In the form of a parable entitled Pomperipossa in Monismania, she attacked the Swedish government’s systemic corruption by describing her own real situation of having to pay 102 per cent tax on her income. Her impact was such that it led to the nation’s Social Democrat party being voted out of power for the first time in 44 years.

A strong opponent of violence against children, her “No Violence!” speech in 1978 led to Sweden becoming the first country in the world to ban the smacking of children. She extended her humane demands to agriculture and the welfare of animals, and her public intervention led to a new animal rights law in ‘87, which the then Swedish prime minister launched as a birthday gift to her on her 80th birthday.

In 1995, she showed her commitment to combating racism when, at the age of 87, she confronted a group of skinheads and spawned the classic line "If you're a skinhead, I think you should stop skinhead-ing”. The moment of Pippi-esque gumption expressed to a 17-year old was captured on camera and, at a time when xenophobia and attacks on immigrants were far too common in Sweden, her words became a totem in the fight against racism and its associated violence. The effects of her international reputation meant that her commitment to these issues also made headlines and perpetuated a continued ideology of Sweden, not dissimilar to the one she has created in her books.

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Lindgren became one of Sweden’s best-loved citizens, and she received numerous accolades from institutions that appreciated her writing and wider work. At the Right Livelihood Award in 1994, which she received for her “unique authorship dedicated to the rights of children and respect for their individuality”, she humbly stated in her acceptance speech that, “If I have brightened up one single sad childhood, then I have at least accomplished something in my life”.

And today, the powerhouse that is Astrid Lindgren continues to be a relevant and guiding force for good. She believed in a better world, and she managed to make that belief contagious through her life's work. Therein, perhaps, lies her magic: she has given old and new Swedes the gift of reading stories filled with characters of conviction, who stand up for what is morally just, who defend each other and their right to individuality - all written by a woman whose own life served to make the country a better place.

Looking back at her achievements, it is not difficult to see the effect that Astrid Lindgren’s work has on all - whether Swedish by birth, by voluntary or necessary arrival or even honorarily, by way of distant appreciation from another country. It is clear that we all have Astrid Lindgren to thank for sharing Sweden’s best and most humane qualities with the world.