Author: Ingeborg Bachmann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780857420084
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73) is recognized as one of the most important novelists, poets, and playwrights of postwar German literature. As befitting such a versatile writer, her War Diary is not a day-by-day journal but a series of sketches, depicting the last months of World War II and the first year of the subsequent British occupation of Austria. These articulate and powerful entries--all the more remarkable taking into account Bachmann's young age at the time--reveal the eighteen-year-old's hatred of both war and Nazism as she avoids the fanatics' determination to "defend Klagenfurt to the last man and the last woman." The British occupation leads to her incredible meeting with a British officer, Jack Hamesh, a Jew who had originally fled Vienna for England in 1938. He is astonished to find in Austria a young girl who has read banned authors such as Mann, Schnitzler, and Hofmannsthal. Their relationship is captured here in the emotional and moving letters Hamesh writes to Bachmann when he travels to Israel in 1946. In his correspondence, he describes how in his new home of Israel, he still suffers from the rootlessness affecting so many of those who lost parents, family, friends, and homes in the war. War Diary provides unusual insight into the formation of Bachmann as a writer and will be cherished by the many fans of her work. But it is also a poignant glimpse into life in Austria in the immediate aftermath of the war, and the reflections of both Bachmann and Hamesh speak to a significant and larger story beyond their personal experiences.Praise for the German Edition"A minor sensation that will make literary history. Thanks to the excellent critical commentary, we gain a sense of a period in history and in Bachmann's life that reached deep into her later work. . . . What makes these diary entries so special is . . . the detail of the resistance described, the exhilaration of unexpected peace, the joy of freedom."--Die Zeit
War Diary
Author: Ingeborg Bachmann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780857420084
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73) is recognized as one of the most important novelists, poets, and playwrights of postwar German literature. As befitting such a versatile writer, her War Diary is not a day-by-day journal but a series of sketches, depicting the last months of World War II and the first year of the subsequent British occupation of Austria. These articulate and powerful entries--all the more remarkable taking into account Bachmann's young age at the time--reveal the eighteen-year-old's hatred of both war and Nazism as she avoids the fanatics' determination to "defend Klagenfurt to the last man and the last woman." The British occupation leads to her incredible meeting with a British officer, Jack Hamesh, a Jew who had originally fled Vienna for England in 1938. He is astonished to find in Austria a young girl who has read banned authors such as Mann, Schnitzler, and Hofmannsthal. Their relationship is captured here in the emotional and moving letters Hamesh writes to Bachmann when he travels to Israel in 1946. In his correspondence, he describes how in his new home of Israel, he still suffers from the rootlessness affecting so many of those who lost parents, family, friends, and homes in the war. War Diary provides unusual insight into the formation of Bachmann as a writer and will be cherished by the many fans of her work. But it is also a poignant glimpse into life in Austria in the immediate aftermath of the war, and the reflections of both Bachmann and Hamesh speak to a significant and larger story beyond their personal experiences.Praise for the German Edition"A minor sensation that will make literary history. Thanks to the excellent critical commentary, we gain a sense of a period in history and in Bachmann's life that reached deep into her later work. . . . What makes these diary entries so special is . . . the detail of the resistance described, the exhilaration of unexpected peace, the joy of freedom."--Die Zeit
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780857420084
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73) is recognized as one of the most important novelists, poets, and playwrights of postwar German literature. As befitting such a versatile writer, her War Diary is not a day-by-day journal but a series of sketches, depicting the last months of World War II and the first year of the subsequent British occupation of Austria. These articulate and powerful entries--all the more remarkable taking into account Bachmann's young age at the time--reveal the eighteen-year-old's hatred of both war and Nazism as she avoids the fanatics' determination to "defend Klagenfurt to the last man and the last woman." The British occupation leads to her incredible meeting with a British officer, Jack Hamesh, a Jew who had originally fled Vienna for England in 1938. He is astonished to find in Austria a young girl who has read banned authors such as Mann, Schnitzler, and Hofmannsthal. Their relationship is captured here in the emotional and moving letters Hamesh writes to Bachmann when he travels to Israel in 1946. In his correspondence, he describes how in his new home of Israel, he still suffers from the rootlessness affecting so many of those who lost parents, family, friends, and homes in the war. War Diary provides unusual insight into the formation of Bachmann as a writer and will be cherished by the many fans of her work. But it is also a poignant glimpse into life in Austria in the immediate aftermath of the war, and the reflections of both Bachmann and Hamesh speak to a significant and larger story beyond their personal experiences.Praise for the German Edition"A minor sensation that will make literary history. Thanks to the excellent critical commentary, we gain a sense of a period in history and in Bachmann's life that reached deep into her later work. . . . What makes these diary entries so special is . . . the detail of the resistance described, the exhilaration of unexpected peace, the joy of freedom."--Die Zeit
Diary of a Contraband
Author: William Benjamin Gould
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804747080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406
Book Description
The heart of this book is the remarkable Civil War diary of the author’s great-grandfather, William Benjamin Gould, an escaped slave who served in the United States Navy from 1862 until the end of the war. The diary vividly records Gould’s activity as part of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron off the coast of North Carolina and Virginia; his visits to New York and Boston; the pursuit to Nova Scotia of a hijacked Confederate cruiser; and service in European waters pursuing Confederate ships constructed in Great Britain and France. Gould’s diary is one of only three known diaries of African American sailors in the Civil War. It is distinguished not only by its details and eloquent tone (often deliberately understated and sardonic), but also by its reflections on war, on race, on race relations in the Navy, and on what African Americans might expect after the war. The book includes introductory chapters that establish the context of the diary narrative, an annotated version of the diary, a brief account of Gould’s life in Massachusetts after the war, and William B. Gould IV’s thoughts about the legacy of his great-grandfather and his own journey of discovery in learning about this remarkable man.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804747080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406
Book Description
The heart of this book is the remarkable Civil War diary of the author’s great-grandfather, William Benjamin Gould, an escaped slave who served in the United States Navy from 1862 until the end of the war. The diary vividly records Gould’s activity as part of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron off the coast of North Carolina and Virginia; his visits to New York and Boston; the pursuit to Nova Scotia of a hijacked Confederate cruiser; and service in European waters pursuing Confederate ships constructed in Great Britain and France. Gould’s diary is one of only three known diaries of African American sailors in the Civil War. It is distinguished not only by its details and eloquent tone (often deliberately understated and sardonic), but also by its reflections on war, on race, on race relations in the Navy, and on what African Americans might expect after the war. The book includes introductory chapters that establish the context of the diary narrative, an annotated version of the diary, a brief account of Gould’s life in Massachusetts after the war, and William B. Gould IV’s thoughts about the legacy of his great-grandfather and his own journey of discovery in learning about this remarkable man.
War in Val D'Orcia
Author: Iris Origo
Publisher: Allison & Busby
ISBN: 0749040548
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
It is quite impossible to attach importance to material possessions now. All that one still clings to is a few vital affections' Iris Origo, October 1943. Marchesa Iris Origo and her husband had been settled at their rural estate of La Foce since 1924. When the Second World War broke out Origo, an Englishwoman married to an Italian landowner, had divided loyalties. But as the war dragged on and the hostilities escalated, the small community of Val d'Orcia found themselves helping evacuees, orphans, refugees, prisoners of war and soldiers from both sides, concerned less with who was fighting whom than caring for those who needed their aid. Origo kept her diary throughout this time, when the risk of betrayal was a fact of life and the penalty for helping the enemy would result in death. Even with German troops occupying her manor house, she wrote at night about her valiant attempts to shelter refugees, burying her diary in the garden each morning. The result is a book which has become a classic, an affirmation in itself of courage and resistance, and an unsentimental, compelling story of the trials and tragedies of wartime.
Publisher: Allison & Busby
ISBN: 0749040548
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
It is quite impossible to attach importance to material possessions now. All that one still clings to is a few vital affections' Iris Origo, October 1943. Marchesa Iris Origo and her husband had been settled at their rural estate of La Foce since 1924. When the Second World War broke out Origo, an Englishwoman married to an Italian landowner, had divided loyalties. But as the war dragged on and the hostilities escalated, the small community of Val d'Orcia found themselves helping evacuees, orphans, refugees, prisoners of war and soldiers from both sides, concerned less with who was fighting whom than caring for those who needed their aid. Origo kept her diary throughout this time, when the risk of betrayal was a fact of life and the penalty for helping the enemy would result in death. Even with German troops occupying her manor house, she wrote at night about her valiant attempts to shelter refugees, burying her diary in the garden each morning. The result is a book which has become a classic, an affirmation in itself of courage and resistance, and an unsentimental, compelling story of the trials and tragedies of wartime.
A Chill in the Air
Author: Iris Origo
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681372649
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
A harrowing account of life in Italy in the year leading up to World War II, available in the US for the first time. In 1939 it was not a foregone conclusion that Mussolini would enter World War II on the side of Hitler. In this previously unpublished and only recently discovered diary, Iris Origo, author of the classic War in Val d’Orcia, provides a vivid account of how Mussolini decided on a course of action that would devastate his country and ultimately destroy his regime. Though the British-born Origo lived with her Italian husband on an estate in a remote part of Tuscany, she was supremely well-connected and regularly in touch with intellectual and diplomatic circles in Rome, where her godfather, William Phillips, was the American ambassador. Her diary describes the Fascist government’s growing infatuation with Nazi Germany as Hitler’s armies marched triumphantly across Europe and the campaign of propaganda and intimidation that was mounted in support of its new aims. The book ends with the birth of Origo’s daughter and Origo’s decision to go to Rome to work with prisoners of war at the Italian Red Cross. Together with War in Val d’Orcia, A Chill in the Air offers an indispensable record of Italy at war as well as a thrilling story of a formidable woman’s transformation from observer to actor at a great historical turning point.
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681372649
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
A harrowing account of life in Italy in the year leading up to World War II, available in the US for the first time. In 1939 it was not a foregone conclusion that Mussolini would enter World War II on the side of Hitler. In this previously unpublished and only recently discovered diary, Iris Origo, author of the classic War in Val d’Orcia, provides a vivid account of how Mussolini decided on a course of action that would devastate his country and ultimately destroy his regime. Though the British-born Origo lived with her Italian husband on an estate in a remote part of Tuscany, she was supremely well-connected and regularly in touch with intellectual and diplomatic circles in Rome, where her godfather, William Phillips, was the American ambassador. Her diary describes the Fascist government’s growing infatuation with Nazi Germany as Hitler’s armies marched triumphantly across Europe and the campaign of propaganda and intimidation that was mounted in support of its new aims. The book ends with the birth of Origo’s daughter and Origo’s decision to go to Rome to work with prisoners of war at the Italian Red Cross. Together with War in Val d’Orcia, A Chill in the Air offers an indispensable record of Italy at war as well as a thrilling story of a formidable woman’s transformation from observer to actor at a great historical turning point.
The War Outside My Window
Author: Janet Elizabeth Croon
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1611213894
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
A remarkable account of the collapse of the Old South and the final years of a young boy’s privileged but afflicted life. LeRoy Wiley Gresham was born in 1847 to an affluent slave-holding family in Macon, Georgia. After a horrific leg injury left him an invalid, the educated, inquisitive, perceptive, and exceptionally witty twelve-year-old began keeping a diary in 1860—just as secession and the Civil War began tearing the country and his world apart. He continued to write even as his health deteriorated until both the war and his life ended in 1865. His unique manuscript of the demise of the Old South is published here for the first time in The War Outside My Window. LeRoy read books, devoured newspapers and magazines, listened to gossip, and discussed and debated important social and military issues with his parents and others. He wrote daily for five years, putting pen to paper with a vim and tongue-in-cheek vigor that impresses even now, more than 150 years later. His practical, philosophical, and occasionally Twain-like hilarious observations cover politics and the secession movement, the long and increasingly destructive Civil War, family pets, a wide variety of hobbies and interests, and what life was like at the center of a socially prominent wealthy family in the important Confederate manufacturing center of Macon. The young scribe often voiced concern about the family’s pair of plantations outside town, and recorded his interactions and relationships with servants as he pondered the fate of human bondage and his family’s declining fortunes. Unbeknownst to LeRoy, he was chronicling his own slow and painful descent toward death in tandem with the demise of the Southern Confederacy. He recorded—often in horrific detail—an increasingly painful and debilitating disease that robbed him of his childhood. The teenager’s declining health is a consistent thread coursing through his fascinating journals. “I feel more discouraged [and] less hopeful about getting well than I ever did before,” he wrote on March 17, 1863. “I am weaker and more helpless than I ever was.” Morphine and a score of other “remedies” did little to ease his suffering. Abscesses developed; nagging coughs and pain consumed him. Alternating between bouts of euphoria and despondency, he often wrote, “Saw off my leg.” The War Outside My Window, edited and annotated by Janet Croon with helpful footnotes and a detailed family biographical chart, captures the spirit and the character of a young privileged white teenager witnessing the demise of his world even as his own body slowly failed him. Just as Anne Frank has come down to us as the adolescent voice of World War II, LeRoy Gresham will now be remembered as the young voice of the Civil War South. Winner, 2018, The Douglas Southall Freeman Award
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1611213894
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
A remarkable account of the collapse of the Old South and the final years of a young boy’s privileged but afflicted life. LeRoy Wiley Gresham was born in 1847 to an affluent slave-holding family in Macon, Georgia. After a horrific leg injury left him an invalid, the educated, inquisitive, perceptive, and exceptionally witty twelve-year-old began keeping a diary in 1860—just as secession and the Civil War began tearing the country and his world apart. He continued to write even as his health deteriorated until both the war and his life ended in 1865. His unique manuscript of the demise of the Old South is published here for the first time in The War Outside My Window. LeRoy read books, devoured newspapers and magazines, listened to gossip, and discussed and debated important social and military issues with his parents and others. He wrote daily for five years, putting pen to paper with a vim and tongue-in-cheek vigor that impresses even now, more than 150 years later. His practical, philosophical, and occasionally Twain-like hilarious observations cover politics and the secession movement, the long and increasingly destructive Civil War, family pets, a wide variety of hobbies and interests, and what life was like at the center of a socially prominent wealthy family in the important Confederate manufacturing center of Macon. The young scribe often voiced concern about the family’s pair of plantations outside town, and recorded his interactions and relationships with servants as he pondered the fate of human bondage and his family’s declining fortunes. Unbeknownst to LeRoy, he was chronicling his own slow and painful descent toward death in tandem with the demise of the Southern Confederacy. He recorded—often in horrific detail—an increasingly painful and debilitating disease that robbed him of his childhood. The teenager’s declining health is a consistent thread coursing through his fascinating journals. “I feel more discouraged [and] less hopeful about getting well than I ever did before,” he wrote on March 17, 1863. “I am weaker and more helpless than I ever was.” Morphine and a score of other “remedies” did little to ease his suffering. Abscesses developed; nagging coughs and pain consumed him. Alternating between bouts of euphoria and despondency, he often wrote, “Saw off my leg.” The War Outside My Window, edited and annotated by Janet Croon with helpful footnotes and a detailed family biographical chart, captures the spirit and the character of a young privileged white teenager witnessing the demise of his world even as his own body slowly failed him. Just as Anne Frank has come down to us as the adolescent voice of World War II, LeRoy Gresham will now be remembered as the young voice of the Civil War South. Winner, 2018, The Douglas Southall Freeman Award
Normandy to Victory
Author: William C. Sylvan
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813126428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 613
Book Description
During World War II, U.S. Army generals often maintained diaries of their activities and the day-to-day operations of their command. These diaries have proven to be invaluable historical resources for World War II scholars and enthusiasts alike. Until now, one of the most historically significant of these diaries, the one kept for General Courtney H. Hodges of the First U.S. Army, has not been widely available to the public. Maintained by two of Hodges's aides, Major William C. Sylvan and Captain Francis G. Smith Jr., this unique military journal offers a vivid, firsthand account detailing the actions, decisions, and daily activities of General Hodges and the First Army throughout the war. The diary opens on June 2, 1944, as Hodges and the First Army prepare for the Allied invasion of France. In the weeks and months that follow, the diary highlights the crucial role that Hodges's often undervalued command—the first to cross the German border, the first to cross the Rhine, the first to close to the Elbe—played in the Allied operations in northwest Europe. The diary recounts the First Army's involvement in the fight for France, the Siegfried Line campaign, the Battle of the Bulge, the drive to the Roer River, and the crossing of the Rhine, following Hodges and his men through savage European combat until the German surrender in May 1945. Popularly referred to as the "Sylvan Diary," after its primary writer, the diary has previously been available only to military historians and researchers, who were permitted to use it at only the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, the U.S. Army Center for Military History, or the U.S. Army Military History Institute. Retired U.S. Army historian John T. Greenwood has now edited this text in its entirety and added a biography of General Hodges as well as extensive notes that clarify the diary's historical details. Normandy to Victory provides military history enthusiasts with valuable insights into the thoughts and actions of a leading American commander whose army played a crucial role in the Allied successes of World War II.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813126428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 613
Book Description
During World War II, U.S. Army generals often maintained diaries of their activities and the day-to-day operations of their command. These diaries have proven to be invaluable historical resources for World War II scholars and enthusiasts alike. Until now, one of the most historically significant of these diaries, the one kept for General Courtney H. Hodges of the First U.S. Army, has not been widely available to the public. Maintained by two of Hodges's aides, Major William C. Sylvan and Captain Francis G. Smith Jr., this unique military journal offers a vivid, firsthand account detailing the actions, decisions, and daily activities of General Hodges and the First Army throughout the war. The diary opens on June 2, 1944, as Hodges and the First Army prepare for the Allied invasion of France. In the weeks and months that follow, the diary highlights the crucial role that Hodges's often undervalued command—the first to cross the German border, the first to cross the Rhine, the first to close to the Elbe—played in the Allied operations in northwest Europe. The diary recounts the First Army's involvement in the fight for France, the Siegfried Line campaign, the Battle of the Bulge, the drive to the Roer River, and the crossing of the Rhine, following Hodges and his men through savage European combat until the German surrender in May 1945. Popularly referred to as the "Sylvan Diary," after its primary writer, the diary has previously been available only to military historians and researchers, who were permitted to use it at only the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, the U.S. Army Center for Military History, or the U.S. Army Military History Institute. Retired U.S. Army historian John T. Greenwood has now edited this text in its entirety and added a biography of General Hodges as well as extensive notes that clarify the diary's historical details. Normandy to Victory provides military history enthusiasts with valuable insights into the thoughts and actions of a leading American commander whose army played a crucial role in the Allied successes of World War II.
The World War I Diary of José de la Luz Sáenz
Author: J. Luz Sáenz
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623491134
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530
Book Description
“I am home, safe and sound, and reviewing all these memories as if in a dream. All of this pleases me. I have been faithful to my duty.” Thus José de la Luz Sáenz ends his account of his military service in France and Germany in 1918. Published in Spanish in 1933, his annotated book of diary entries and letters recounts not only his own war experiences but also those of his fellow Mexican Americans. A skilled and dedicated teacher in South Texas before and after the war, Sáenz’s patriotism, his keen observation of the discrimination he and his friends faced both at home and in the field, and his unwavering dedication to the cause of equality have for years made this book a valuable resource for scholars, though only ten copies are known to exist and it has never before been available in English. Equally clear in these pages are the astute reflections and fierce pride that spurred Sáenz and others to pursue the postwar organization of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). This English edition of one of only two known war diaries of a Mexican American in the Great War is translated with an introduction and annotation by noted Mexican American historian Emilio Zamora.
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623491134
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530
Book Description
“I am home, safe and sound, and reviewing all these memories as if in a dream. All of this pleases me. I have been faithful to my duty.” Thus José de la Luz Sáenz ends his account of his military service in France and Germany in 1918. Published in Spanish in 1933, his annotated book of diary entries and letters recounts not only his own war experiences but also those of his fellow Mexican Americans. A skilled and dedicated teacher in South Texas before and after the war, Sáenz’s patriotism, his keen observation of the discrimination he and his friends faced both at home and in the field, and his unwavering dedication to the cause of equality have for years made this book a valuable resource for scholars, though only ten copies are known to exist and it has never before been available in English. Equally clear in these pages are the astute reflections and fierce pride that spurred Sáenz and others to pursue the postwar organization of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). This English edition of one of only two known war diaries of a Mexican American in the Great War is translated with an introduction and annotation by noted Mexican American historian Emilio Zamora.
Pacific War Diary, 1942-1945
Author: James J. Fahey
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618400805
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
Fahey was a 24-year-old garbage-truck driver when he enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 3, 1942, and became a seaman first class on the USS Montpelier. During almost three years of battle in the Pacific Ocean, he defied Navy rules against keeping a diary by writing copious notes on loose sheets of paper that appeared to anyone watching to be ordinary let
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618400805
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
Fahey was a 24-year-old garbage-truck driver when he enlisted in the Navy on Oct. 3, 1942, and became a seaman first class on the USS Montpelier. During almost three years of battle in the Pacific Ocean, he defied Navy rules against keeping a diary by writing copious notes on loose sheets of paper that appeared to anyone watching to be ordinary let
Diary of the 1914-1918 War
Author: Yves Congar
Publisher: ATF Press
ISBN: 1925309061
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 516
Book Description
Written as a young man in Sedan, in the eastern France, which was occupied by the German's in the First Wold War, Congar makes daily entries about the War. Written from the eyes of a child, the diary was found in his room in Paris after his death and published a few years later. The diary comes with the drawings, maps, and poetry he made as part of this daily entries.
Publisher: ATF Press
ISBN: 1925309061
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 516
Book Description
Written as a young man in Sedan, in the eastern France, which was occupied by the German's in the First Wold War, Congar makes daily entries about the War. Written from the eyes of a child, the diary was found in his room in Paris after his death and published a few years later. The diary comes with the drawings, maps, and poetry he made as part of this daily entries.
A World Gone Mad
Author: Astrid Lindgren
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 1782272321
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
A civilian, a mother, and a writer's unique account of a world devastated by conflict 'A rare glimpse of life in neutral Sweden and an insight into the dark setting that created her best-known work' FT Before she became internationally known for her children's books, Astrid Lindgren was an aspiring author living in Stockholm with her family at the outbreak of The Second World War. In these diaries, Lindgren emerges as a morally courageous critic of violence and war, as well as a deeply sensitive and astute observer of world affairs. Alongside political events, she includes delightful vignettes of domestic life, moments of personal crisis, and reveals the origins of Pippi Longstocking - soon to become one of the most famous and beloved children's books of the twentieth century.
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 1782272321
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
A civilian, a mother, and a writer's unique account of a world devastated by conflict 'A rare glimpse of life in neutral Sweden and an insight into the dark setting that created her best-known work' FT Before she became internationally known for her children's books, Astrid Lindgren was an aspiring author living in Stockholm with her family at the outbreak of The Second World War. In these diaries, Lindgren emerges as a morally courageous critic of violence and war, as well as a deeply sensitive and astute observer of world affairs. Alongside political events, she includes delightful vignettes of domestic life, moments of personal crisis, and reveals the origins of Pippi Longstocking - soon to become one of the most famous and beloved children's books of the twentieth century.