Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940) Sweden’s foremost storyteller. She was Nobel Prize laureate in 2009, the first woman writer ever to be given the prize. To this day her novels are read all over the world. She deals with much the same questions as the great Russian author and thinker Fjodor Dostojevskij. Like him she investigates the depths of the human soul, its darkest recesses and its soaring heights. Like him she explores the violent clash between the old set of values defined by Christianity and the new ideas professed by Socialism. She shares the same love of the Earth, the same belief in women’s great capacity for love.