author
Ellen Wester
1860–1936
A Swedish novelist, translator, and women's suffrage activist, she wrote historical and satirical fiction in a small but distinctive body of work. Her career joined literature with public engagement, especially in the early 1900s.
1 Audiobook
Kaksitoista kuukautta
by Ellen Wester
About the author
Born in Sölvesborg on May 16, 1860, and later dying in Lund on September 8, 1936, she is remembered in Swedish literary reference works as a writer, translator, and advocate for women's suffrage. Her work places her among the culturally active Swedish women of the early twentieth century.
She made her debut in 1900 with Frideswidas krönika, a novel set in the Middle Ages. Reference sources also note the satirical story collection De slutna händerna och andra berättelser (1902), followed by the novels Anna Elisabet Lindon (1905) and Paracelsus i Stockholm (1931). Though her output was not large, it appears to have been varied in tone, moving between historical fiction and satire.
Alongside her writing, she was also active as a translator, which adds to the picture of a literary life that extended beyond her own books. She is sometimes confused with her cousin Ellen Sofia Wester, another notable Swedish literary figure, so the dates 1860–1936 are a useful way to distinguish the novelist featured here.