Anna Svard

The curse on the Loewenskoeld family comes to fruition in unexpected ways in this final volume of the Loewenskoeld cycle. Anna Svard is also very much a novel of women's struggle toward finding fulfillment. The Loewenskoeld Ring resonates with 'beggars cannot be choosers' in relation to what a poor woman can expect in life, while Charlotte Loewenskoeld moves toward women having some choices. In Anna Svard the eponymous protagonist takes full and impressive control of her own life and destiny. The question of motherhood and the fates of the children with whom the characters engage is another theme. The reader goes on to follow Charlotte, Karl-Artur, Thea and their families, familiar from the previous volume, through this compact novel as it moves relentlessly toward a chilling denoument. Selma Lagerloef (1858-1940) quickly established herself as a major author of novels and short stories, and her work has been translated into close to 50 languages. Most of the translations into English were made soon after the publication of the original Swedish texts and have long been out of date. 'Lagerloef in English' provides English-language readers with high-quality new translations of a selection of the Nobel Laureate's most important texts.