Selma Lagerloef

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Selma Lagerloef

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (1858 - 1940) was a Swedish author and teacher. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. On 10 December 1909, Selma Lagerlöf won the Nobel Prize "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings". In 1902, Lagerlöf was asked by the National Teacher's Association to write a geography book for children. She wrote Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (The Wonderful Adventures of Nils), a novel about a boy from the southernmost part of Sweden, who had been shrunk to the size of a thumb and who travelled on the back of a goose across the country. Lagerlöf mixed historical and geographical facts about the provinces of Sweden with the tale of the boy's adventures until he managed to return home and was restored to his normal size. The novel is one of Lagerlöf's most well-known books, and it has been translated into more than 30 languages.