A CELEBRATION OF THE 150TH BIRTHDAY
OF SWEDEN'S LEADING FEMALE
19TH CENTURY WRITER
AND OF THE CONTINUING TRADITION
OF WOMEN'S LITERATURE
IN SWEDEN AND SCANDINAVIA


MARCH 10-11, 2000,
AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
AT DEUTSCHES HAUS,
420 W. 116TH ST., NEW YORK CITY

Victoria Benedictsson, sometimes known as "Sweden's George Eliot" and often identified as the inspiration for Strindberg's character Miss Julie and Ibsen's heroine Hedda Gabler, has long been acknowledged in Scandinavia as one of the most interesting writers of the Modern Breakthrough at the end of the 19th century. Yet beyond Scandinavia, where both Ibsen and Strindberg have long earned high praise for their literary output, the works of this key woman author are still little known.

Now, a century and a half after her birthday on March 6, 1850, help us to add her story to the international record of women's literary history, as her life and work are celebrated by readers and scholars both in Sweden and abroad. The purpose of this program at Columbia University is to honor the accomplishments of Victoria Benedictsson and to see their reflection in the works of recent generations of Swedish women writers over a century later.

On the evenings of March 10 and 11, two of her dramas will be presented, for the first time in English, in staged readings by actors. On the afternoon of March 11, Christina Sjöblad, the editor of Benedictsson's diary, will speak on her years of work with the author. Her talk will be followed by a slide-show on late-19th-century women artists of Scandinavia and by three contemporary Swedish women novelists reading new translations from recent works.

The texts of these events, and a brief introduction to Benedictsson, are incorporated on this Web site in the hopes that intelligent readers internationally will want to discover and explore her literary heritage, enlarging the ranks of her enthusiastic admirers abroad.

These celebrations of Benedictsson and of other women authors in Sweden, as well as the accompanying Web site, is sponsored by the Swedish Program of Columbia University in cooperation with and thanks to assistance from the Swedish Institute, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, SWEA - New York Chapter, the Swedish Information Service, and the Columbia Institute on Women and Gender as well as the Department of Germanic Languages.

FOR RESERVATIONS FOR THE EVENTS ON MARCH 10 AND 11, PLEASE PHONE THE SWEDISH PROGRAM AT (212) 854-7859, OR E-MAIL VERNE MOBERG AT VAM1@COLUMBIA.EDU. PLEASE TELL US WHICH EVENTS YOU PLAN TO ATTEND.



For further information, call the Swedish Program at (212) 854-7859; fax (212) 854-5381; or e-mail vam1@columbia.edu.


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