Who wouldn’t know about Nils Holgersson, this rocky but very pure and nice fictional fairy tale boy? A unique novel’s just been published recently about a really special woman, author and protagonist, Selma Lagerlöf, creator and author of Nils Holgersson. She fought all her live long against the discrimination of women, for her rights, and for her dream herself. She also was the first woman to be granted a membership in the Swedish Academy. We discussed with Charley von Feyerabend, writer of the novel: Selma Lagerlöf.
– You are author of historical female fictions, based on real stories and characters. What is your state of mind for these topics? How did you get into historical atmosphere?
– I would say this goes back to the very beginnings of my writing. I was an apprentice in a big hotel and was craving for intellectual input. By accident I got to meet an aspiring, young chef, who had also studied philosophy earlier in his career and talked a lot. Inspired by these talks I started to write smaller theatre plays. Later I played theatre myself and I believe that this is a great way of peeking in the heads of other people. To adopt other moods onto your own ones and to get an idea of driving forces behind them. During my university days I wrote my first historical thesis about a German female poet who lived in the 19th century – during the time I worked in the thesis, I got used to the very special atmosphere of archives. Essentialfor getting into the historical atmosphere is to have an excellent understanding of the background of the time you write about. All circumstances, all relevant points – like politics, music, clothes, the family situation of the protagonists. With all that a picture develops in my head and after that the language follows and text flows.
– The book of Selma Lagerlöf, author of Nils Holgerson, has just been published in Hungary. How did you get to her?
– There were several things that linked me to her. At the beginning of my research, I lived in a town very close to Stockholm. Two of my three kids went to a school just around the corner of the beautiful park „Humlegården” with the royal library right next to it. There you can find handwritings of Selma Lagerlöf. In my childhood the Nils Holgersson book was one my constant companions and later when I worked for a publishing house in Germany part of my jobs was to introduce new books in a section of a magazine that I wrote for – there was one about Nils Holgersson and his travel through Sweden – I had this book with me, when we moved to Stockholm and that was the beginning of me writing the first historical novel about her.
– How was your research?
– Demanding and inspiring I would say. I hadlots of literature from Selma Lagerlöf herself and also about her and the historical circumstances of that time. I had two big moving boxes full of books about those topics! The most useful sources were her letters – she wrote thousands of letters and those helped me to build up a solid understanding. In addition, I travelled to visit to her home Mårbacka where I spend some time soaking up the atmosphere and talking to people. I had a very nice guide who showed me the home of Selma and told me about things that you can’t find in any books because they were historic knowledge of former employees and stayed „in the house”. Amongst others there were seemingly small details like her sense for smells and that she loved roses plus a lot of other habits. That really helped me to get a complete picture of Selma Lagerlöf.
– Who was Selma Lagerlöf for you, what is the most interesting fact or thing about her, and why?
– Selma Lagerlöf was one of the bravest persons that I ever read about. She fought all her live long straineous fights against the discrimination of women, for her rights and for her dream herself. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and she was the first woman to be granted a membership in the Swedish Academy. Yet she managed it to live a fullfilling life, with her beloved at her side while creating a new form of literature, that didn’t exist before. It’s her strong will, that impressed me a lot and her courage to look her fear directly in the eyes and dealed with it. And I love her language, she used in her literature. I tried to adapt it a little bit for the novel about her. To me, she is a great role model!
– What is your plan for the future? Who’s coming next?
– After Selma I wrote a historical novel about Caroline Märklin, who was one of the first female traveling salesman in Germany, perhaps you have heard about her because of Märklin model railway that wouldn’t exist without her. These model trains are specifically popular in Germany and you still have many people collecting them in addition to preserved childhood memories for a tremendous number of people. In June 2024 a new historical novel about Beate Uhse will be published. She was one of the first female airplane pilots before WW2, working as a stunt and test pilot and after the war she truly was the pioneer of the sexual revolution for women and a very successful sex shop entrepreneur. She was a founder of one of the biggest success stories in that area which ultimately also became a huge commercial success when her business of sex shops and online shops a became stock listed company. A huge inspiration to entrepreneurship and to many women of that time and for sure up until today. I like it to look at the beginnings: why are some people so special and have so much courage? So I did research about her childhood and youth, which was equally special, just like her profession. Quite an individual or?
Overall as you can see I love diving into the lives of in my view very special women, women that achieved things despite a many odds. Being myself the mother of a teenage daughter I want to tell the story of those women and I hope that readers find some inspiration in those stories (maybe even my daughter). Thanks for the interview!
