author
Anna Mathilda Cecilia Johannesdotter Johansson
1877–1906
A rare first-person voice from turn-of-the-century Sweden, her writing opens a direct window onto poverty, exploitation, and life on society’s margins. Her work survives as both personal testimony and an unusually vivid social document.
1 Audiobook
Yhteiskunnan uhri : Eräs elämäntarina
by Anna Mathilda Cecilia Johannesdotter Johansson
About the author
Born on January 24, 1877, in Hjelmeryd parish in Jönköping County, she grew up in difficult circumstances and was later drawn into precarious work in Stockholm. Under the name Anna Johannesdotter, she became known for autobiographical writings about life in the city’s underworld and for the stark honesty with which she described hardship and survival.
Her best-known book, Den undre världen: en lifshistoria, was published in 1907 after her death and edited by the writer and critic Klara Johanson. The text was presented as the life story of a young woman who had experienced prostitution and repeated contact with the authorities, and it has continued to be read as an important witness account of social conditions in early 20th-century Sweden.
She died in 1906, reportedly of tuberculosis, still very young. Although little is known about her beyond the traces left in official records and her own writing, that writing has given her a lasting place in Swedish literary and social history.