Vilhelm Moberg

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Vilhelm Moberg (August 20, 1898 - August 8, 1973) was a Swedish author and historian.

He was born in Småland, in southern Sweden of peasant and soldier stock. He worked as a farm and forest laborer, and later worked at glassblowing and studied at a Folk Academy until he became a recognized author.

Moberg's most famous work is a series of four novels (1949-1959) that describe one Swedish family's migration from Småland to Minnesota in the late 19th century, a destiny shared by almost one million people, including several of the author's relatives. The musical Kristina från Duvemåla by ex-ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson is based on this story. These novels have been translated into English (The Emigrants, 1951, Unto a Good Land, 1954, The Settlers, 1961, The Last Letter Home, 1961) as have some of his other works, and he is well-recognized in America among those of Scandinavian heritage.

With a working class background, Moberg started out as a newspaper editor (in 1919). His first novel (Raskens) appeared in 1927. In his works, he often expressed a republican (anti-royalist) point of view, much due to the facts that surfaced in the Kejne affair and Haijby affair, in which Moberg took an active part.

His autobiographical novel "Soldat med brutet gevär" (Soldier with broken rifle) he speaks to the importance of giving voice to the downtrodden, illiterate classes of his forebears. This viewpoint informed his History of the Swedish People (MIN SVENSKA HISTORIA, BERÄTTAD FÖR FOLKET, I-II) published in 1970-71.

Vilhelm Moberg, who committed suicide in 1973, was buried in the Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.

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