Karin Maria Boye is a swedish writer, poet and translator. She is a popular figure in Sweden, and although being famous for her poetry, Boye is also a prominent Radical Socialist.
History[]
Early life[]
Karin Boye was born in Göteborg, Västergötland on 26 October 1900. Both her parents came from well-off families who supplied Boye with high quality studies, which she performed very well in, finishing her studies to become a teacher.
Karin Boye as a teacher (1925)
Political life[]
She strongly identified with the socialist and feminist movements of Sweden and in 1927 she became the editor of a socialist newspaper. She visited Germany to see family and lived in Berlin from 1932 to 1933, where she confronted her sexuality and started living openly with another woman, Margot Hanel, a German Jewish woman. The two of them returned to Sweden, where Boye continued to develop her interest in politics and poetry. Thanks to her popularity she managed to avoid legal confrontration regarding her sexuality, and is considered to be one of Sweden's leading radical socialist having joined the radical, hard-line socialist movement of the Swedish Social Democratic Left Party, a group headed by Karl Kilbom.
Works[]
Novels[]
- 1931 – Astarte
- 1933 – Merit vaknar
- 1934 – Kris
Collections of poems[]
- 1922 – Moln
- 1924 – Gömda land
- 1927 – Härdarna
- 1935 – För trädets skull