The Modern Novel

Biography

Hjalmar Söderberg was born in Stockholm in 1869. His father was a civil servant. Though he enrolled at Uppsala University, he only attended classes for a few months before taking up a variety of jobs, including working as a reporter. He started writing poetry and short stories but had little success. He published his first novel in 1895 about a young somewhat immoral poet and was condemned for not condemning the immorality of his hero. He had some success with his next book, a book of short stories but it was with his novel, Doktor Glas (Doctor Glas), published in 1905 that he had real success and it has become a Swedish classic. Though he wrote further novels and stories, in later life he turned more to journalism and criticism. He was particularly critical of the church and also attacked Nazism. He spent the last thirty years of his life in Copenhagen, marrying a Danish woman, and died there in 1941, expecting to be arresting by the Nazis at any moment.

Other links

Hjalmar Söderberg
His grave
Hjalmar Söderberg (in Swedish)