Background

Ulla Isaksson was born on June 22, 1916, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Knut Lundberg and Greta Brasch.

Education

Ulla Isaksson passed the upper secondary school leaving examination in 1937. She then began studying philosophy.

Career

As Isaksson's mother was a member of the Immanuelskirken church community, her upbringing was very religious, which plays a strong role in her debut novel Trädet, 1940, and her subsequent works I denna natt, 1942, and Av krukmakarens hand, 1942. However, in her fourth novel Ytterst i havet, 1950, described by herself as being her true debut work, she dramatically challenged the conventions of both religion and the novel.

The issue of religion, which persisted in her later works, receded into the background, and she wrote a series of novels and short stories about women and love. In Kvinnohuset (N), 1952, she describes the mysteries of love through a commune of women, in Dit du icke vill (N), 1956, she investigates the conditions of female love, going back in history to the witch trials. Her probably knew and most thorough depiction of love is to be found in De två saliga (1962; Eng. tr. The Blessed Ones), in which she examines special types of love expressed in male domination and female submission.

In her novels Paradistorg, 1973, and FödelseDagen, 1988, the story centers on an aging woman. While deeply committed to the problems discussed by women of the modern generation, she was also critical of many of their attitudes. In the late 1970s, Ulla Isaksson wrote a two-volume biography together with her husband Erik Hjalmar Linder about Elin Wägner, Amason med två bröst, 1977, and Dotter af Moder Jord, 1980. In Boken om E., 1994, which was nominated for The Nordic Council’s Literature Prize, she told the story of her husband’s insidious dementia, her disintegrating partnership, and the loss of her husband while he was still alive.

Achievements

• Ulla Isaksson was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of philosophy in 1978. She earned Svenska Dagbladet’s literature prize for her House of Women in 1958, and in 1999 she was awarded a prize from De Nio, a Swedish literary society to which she belonged.

Works

• book

  • Kvinnohuset 1952
  • Dit du icke vill 1956
  • Klänningen 1959

Religion

Isaksson's parents were the members of the Immanuelkyrkan church; this gave Isaksson's upbringing a strong religious character, something that marked her early novels.

Connections

Ulla married David Isaksson in 1938. Isaksson remained married to David Isaksson until 1963 when she married secondly the author Erik Hjalmar Linder.

Father:

Knut Lundberg

Mother:

Greta Brasch

Spouse:

Erik Hjalmar Linder

ex-spouse:

David Isaksson

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 189
  2001