Dikken Zwilgmeyer

Born in Trondheim in 1853, Dikken Zwilgmeyer grew up partly in Christiania and in Risør, and those surroundings later shaped many of her best-known books. Writing under the name Inger Johanne as well as her own, she became one of the key figures in renewing Norwegian children's literature around the turn of the 20th century.

Her stories stood out for bringing contemporary Norwegian life and believable children into fiction, especially in the Inger Johanne series. She also wrote novels and short stories for adults, including work often described as having a feminist outlook, though that side of her writing was less celebrated in her own time.

Zwilgmeyer died in Kongsberg in 1913. Today she is remembered both as a popular storyteller and as an author who helped move children's literature in a more modern, realistic direction.