Swedish poet and novelist (1900?1941)
Karin Maria Boye
(
listen
ⓘ
; 26 October 1900 ? 24 April 1941)
[1]
was a
Swedish poet and novelist
. In Sweden, she is acclaimed as a poet, but internationally, she is best known for the dystopian science fiction novel
Kallocain
(1940).
Biography
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Early life
[
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]
Karin Boye as a child.
Boye was born in
Gothenburg
(Goteborg), Sweden in a wealthy family and moved with her family to
Stockholm
in 1909, eventually settling in a house in
Huddinge
. In Stockholm, she studied at the
Ahlinska skolan
until 1920. She then attended Sodra seminariet, a teacher-training programme, in order to become a school teacher. She studied at
Uppsala University
from 1921 to 1926 and debuted in 1922 with a collection of poems, "Clouds" (Swedish:
Moln
). During her time in Uppsala and until 1930, Boye was a member of the
Swedish Clarte League
, a socialist group that was strongly
antifascist
.
[2]
She was also a member of the women's organization
Nya Idun
.
[3]
Literary career
[
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In 1931, Boye, together with
Erik Mesterton
and
Josef Riwkin
, founded the poetry magazine
Spektrum
, introducing
T. S. Eliot
and the
Surrealists
to Swedish readers. She translated many of Eliot's works into
Swedish
; she and Mesterton translated "
The Waste Land
".
[2]
Boye is perhaps most famous for her poems, the most well-known of which are "Yes, of course it hurts" (Swedish:
Ja visst gor det ont
)
[4]
and "In motion" (
I rorelse
) from her collections of poems "The Hearths" (
Hardarna
), 1927, and "For the sake of the tree" (
For tradets skull
), 1935. She was also a member of the Swedish literary institution
Samfundet De Nio
(The Nine Society) from 1931 until her death in 1941.
Boye's 1931 novel
Astarte
was a criticism of the bourgeois culture, and won a Nordic novel prize. Her novel "Crisis" (
Kris
) depicts her religious crisis and lesbianism. In her novels "Merit awakens" (
Merit vaknar
) and "Too little" (
For lite
) she explores male and female role-playing.
[2]
Outside Sweden, her best-known work is probably the novel
Kallocain
. Inspired by her visit to Germany during the rise of
Nazism
, it was a portrayal of a dystopian society in the vein of
George Orwell
's
Nineteen Eighty-Four
and
Aldous Huxley
's
Brave New World
(though written almost a decade before Orwell's magnum opus). In the novel, an idealistic scientist named Leo Kall invents Kallocain, a kind of
truth serum
. The novel was filmed in Sweden in 1981 and was the main influence on the movie
Equilibrium
.
[5]
Later life
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]
The statue of Boye on
Kungsportsavenyn
, outside the
Gothenburg City Library
(
Stadsbiblioteket
)
Between 1929 and 1932, Boye was married to another Clarte member, Leif Bjorck. The marriage was apparently a
friendship union
. In 1932, after separating from her husband, she had a lesbian relationship with Gunnel Bergstrom, who left her husband, poet
Gunnar Ekelof
, for Boye. Following a bout of
depression
she left Stockholm for Berlin, where she went through
psycho-analysis
and affirmed her homosexuality.
[2]
During the stay in Berlin in 1932?1933 she met Margot Hanel (7 April 1912 ? 30 May 1941), whom she lived with for the rest of her life, and referred to as "her wife".
[6]
As Boye had resigned as editor of
Spektrum
she earned her living from translations and writing short stories for weekly magazines. From 1936-1938 Boye was employed as teacher at Viggbyholm school, but suffered from periods of depression and suicide attempts.
[2]
Boye died by suicide on 23 April 1941. She overdosed on sleeping pills.
[1]
She was found (according to the police report at the Regional Archives in Gothenburg) on 27 April, curled up at a boulder on a hill with a view just north of
Alingsas
, near Bolltorpsvagen, by a farmer who was going for a walk. The boulder is now a memorial stone. Margot Hanel also died by suicide shortly thereafter.
[7]
Legacy
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Karin Boye was given two very different
epitaphs
. The best-known is the poem "Dead Amazon" (
Dod amazon
) by
Hjalmar Gullberg
, in which she is depicted as "Very dark and with large eyes". Another poem was written by her close friend
Ebbe Linde
and is entitled "Dead friend" (
Dod kamrat
). Here, she is depicted not as a heroic
Amazon
but as an ordinary human, small and grey in death, released from battles and pain.
Boye is also model to the character Isagel in
Harry Martinson
's 1956 poem
Aniara
. Boye and Martinson had a close friendship in the 1930's.
[8]
A literary association dedicated to her work was created in 1983, keeping her work alive by spreading it among new readers. In 2004, one of the branches of the
Uppsala University Library
was named in her honour.
Works
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Novels
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- Astarte
, 1931
- Merit vaknar
, 1933
- Kris
, 1934
- For lite
, 1936
- Kallocain
, 1940
Collections of poems
[
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]
- Moln
, 1922
- Gomda land
, 1924
- Hardarna
, 1927
- For tradets skull
, 1935
- De sju dodssynderna
, 1941 (not completed, posthumously published)
- Complete Poems
in English translation by David McDuff, Bloodaxe Books, 1994
ISBN
9781852241094
References
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]
Sources
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]
Further reading
[
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]
External links
[
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]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Karin Boye
.
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