The Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1909).
The SwedishAcademy awarded her the prize in appreciation of the lofty idealism, her vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings.
Lagerlöf is most widely known for her children’s book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.
The book, intended as a geography primer for elementary schools, became a classic in children’s literature and was translated in several languages. You can click here for a comprehensive description of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, written by Elysa Faith Ng, an eleven year old child.
“The Piano Teacher” – a novel of lust and domination written in the biting style that, in the Swedish Academy’s description, reveals “the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power” – was No. 1,163,804 on Amazon.com’s sales rankings early Thursday, according to The Associated Press. By Friday, it had climbed to No. 9.
Oh, what a Nobel Prize will do to your sales!
Austrian novelist and playwright Elfriede Jelinek was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature.