SELMA LAGERLOF
Swedish author (1858-1940)
Biography:
Selma Ottiliana Lovisa Lagerlöf was born in Marbacka, Sweden, in 1858. She had been writing poetry ever since she was a child, but she did not publish anything until 1890, when a Swedish newspaper gave her the first prize in a literary competition and published excerpts from her first novel, Gösta Berlings Saga (published in 1891 and very succesfull).
During her travelling to Italy she also wrote The Miracles of Antichrist (1897), a novel set in Sicily. After several minor works she published Jerusalem (translated in English as The Holy City) but it was with The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, a book for children, that she became worldwide recognized.
She was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1909.