-- Published: 15 May 2012

Astrid Lindgren’s archives in the National Library of Sweden, Manuscript Dept (L 230), are probably the most extensive any individual Swede has left behind. After some ten years of cataloguing, the archives are now open for research. The archives consist of some 75 000 letters to the author from readers, colleagues, publishers, translators, film and theatre producers, children and many others all over the world; a thousand copies of letters written by her; 600 manuscripts to books, plays, films and essays; 100 000 newspaper; clippings; royalties; photos; shorthand notes etc. , in all more than 140 shelf metres of documents (see www.ediffah.org and search ”Astrid Lindgrens arkiv” for a list of contents). Short hand notes and correspondence require special permission from Astrid Lindgren’s estate, www.saltkrakan.se ; info@saltkrakan.se . The material in the archives should be of interest not only for researches of juvenile literature but also research into art and language education, film and drama, sociology, economics, translation and many other subjects and open up new fields of research on the author’s work. The archives also mirror the fact that Lindgren played an important role in public debate on different subjects such as child care and child abuse, nuclear power and the treatment of farm animals. The archives were included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2005.

The aim of this article is to examine how relations of trust between parent and youngster are expressed in two Norwegian novels written for teenage audiences, namely Tidleg på våren (“Early in Spring”) by Halldis Moren Vesaas (1949) and Bittet (“The Bite”) by Hilde Hagerup (2007). Using the theories of the Danish theologian and moral philosopher Knud E. Løgstrup and the English sociologist Anthony Giddens, two analytic categories of trust and trust relations are established: spontaneous trust, which expresses a fundamental trustthat is not concerned with utility values or risk, and reflexive trust, which takes into consideration utility and risk. An analysis of the novels based on these two categories shows that in both books trust relations between parent and child are seen as fundamental for human existence, much in accordance with the way they are presented in the works of Knud E. Løgstrup.Keywords: trust, trust relation, Knud E. Løgstrup, Anthony Giddens, Halldis Moren Vesaas, Hilde Hagerup, Harald Rosenløw Eeg, Holly- Jane Rahlens, Tidleg på våren, Bittet, Yatzy, Prins William, Maximilian Minsky and me

This article calls on two branches of third-wave feminist theory – ecofeminism and post-colonial feminism – to investigate human and nonhuman interrelations in Neil Gaiman’s young adult graphic novel, Stardust , illustrated by Charles Vess. Stardust follows Tristran Thorn on his journey into the land of Faerie in his attempt to capture and bring back a fallen star. Faerie is both a natural and exotic space and Tristran’s journey “to the East” transposes an Orientalist aesthetic onto its wild geography. Tristran, as would-be coloniser, views Faerie as a place of potentially inexhaustible natural resources. The star – as the imperialistic goal – is in fact a woman, which endows the wild space with further Oriental tropes, rendering it sensual, feminine and embodied. Tristran’s imperialistic impulse is thus associated with both a cultural impulse towards the domination of nature and a patriarchal impulse towards the oppression of women. Tristran’s increasing recognition of the star’s right to a fully realised selfhood sits uncomfortably with his initial imperialistic ambitions. As the novel progresses, the East becomes not, as it has been, a natural world ripe for colonial exploration and exploitation, but a place of positive intersubjective relations between humans and non-human nature. Initially both a real and illusory textual space resembling Edward Said’s “imaginative geography,” Faerie ultimately becomes a space to call “home,” in an overt critique of the nineteenth century boy’s adventure story with its implicit glorifi cation of empire. Thus, it is argued, Stardust’s ecofeminist counter-discourse calls for mutual equality in man’s relationship with both women and the environment, positing anthropocentric and androcentric thinking as in need of re-evaluation. Keywords: Neil Gaiman; ecocriticism; ecofeminism; orientalism; imperialism; post-colonialism; nature; indigenous peoples; graphic novels

Astrid Lindgren’s children’s novel Vi på Saltkråkan (1964) which is set in the outer archipelago of Stockholm is an ideal case for the study of a variety of eco- or “environmental critical” (Buell, 2005) themes and motifs. There is for instance, the ideo-historical motif of the representation of a number of positions on nature and the physical environment generally, from the most anthropocentric one of Vesterman over the “sociocentric” (Buell 2005) view represented by the Grankvist family, to the eco- or biocentric stand of Pelle, which is epitomized in his love and defense of all kinds of animals including the most threatening and irritating ones. There is also the ecocritical generic problem of the idyll. More themes could be named. What will be at the centre of attention in this article, however, is the motif of weather as connected to that of locale, or place, and the Melkersons and the islanders’ defense of place. I suggest that part of the novel’s environmental relevance lies in what could be understood through the metaphor of contract: the characters enter a contract of dependence through the category of weather. This contract is deeply place-related and existentially loaded. The motif of weather cuts into the idea of environmental justice (Adamson, Evans and Stein, 2002), through the Melkersons’ struggle to save Snickargården, a struggle which is shared by the islanders themselves. The weather always serves to underscore the Melkersons’ attachment to place which is one of deepest solidarity, and to home. The novel contains an escathological undercurrent related to place and to weather. In the emphasis on this, the novel offers a profound environmental insight into the dependence of human existence upon environment.Keywords: ecocriticism; environmental criticism; Astrid Lindgren; Vi på Saltkråkan; environment; nature; landscape; place; weather; eschatology; environmental justice.

Before discussing international politics in Lindgren’s works, it is necessary to take a quick look at some tendencies in their translatory reception with an update for this year, as many non-Scandinavian readers might not be aware how their interpretation of Lindgren may have been coloured by target text adaptations which are not to be found in Lindgren’s Swedish source text.

Barnlitteraturen i Iran sträcker sig närmare 3000 år tillbaka i tiden. Här ges en historisk överblick och ett för barnboksforskningen viktigt projekt presenteras: ”The History of Children’s Literature in Iran”. Artikeln bygger på en föreläsning Zohreh Ghaeni höll på Internationella biblioteket i Stockholm vid sitt besök i Sverige hösten 2005.

Den 21 juni beslutade Unescos radgivande kommitte for Memory of the World att fora upp Astrid Lindgrens arkiv i Kungl. biblioteket pa listan over arkiv och dokument som ar av varde for hela manskligheten.

Sverige och Korea har länge varit aktörer på det internationella adoptionsfältet vilket innebär att adoption idag tillhör vardagen i dessa länder. Detta har givit avtryck i de båda ländernas barn- och ungdomslitteratur i form av utvecklingen av en adoptionsgenre. I denna artikel jämförs ett antal koreanska och svenska barn- och ungdomsböcker med syftet att studera hur framställningar och föreställningar om internationell adoption och adoptivkoreaner kommer till uttryck i de olika länderna.

The Swedish Institute for Children’s Books publishes Barnboken – Children’s Books – semiannually. It contains articles and essays on children’s literature by specialists in the field, and provides information on reference books and theoretical works recently published and acquired by the library of the Institute.