ABSTRACT
In 1945 an unknown Swedish author published a story about a strange girl with red braids, freckles all over her face, and a broad mouth who lived all alone with a horse and a monkey in a small Swedish town. With this book the publisher Rabén & Sjögren launched a world success and children s´ classic: Pippi Longstocking has been translated into approximately eighty languages and dialects, and the author Astrid Lindgren is regarded as one of the most famous children’s book authors all over the world. Her children’s novels on Karlsson on the Roof, the Brothers Lionheart, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter, the children of Noisy Village and the Master Detective Bill Bergson, to name just a few famous characters, have been turned into plays, television versions, and fi lms-both animated as well as live fi lms. Nowadays children can choose between radio plays, comic strips, fi lm versions on DVD, and computer games, all of them based on Lindgren’s books. Her fairy tales and short stories, even chapters from Pippi Longstocking, have been published as picturebooks, illustrated by famous artists such as Ingrid Vang Nyman, Ilon Wikland, Pija Lindenbaum, Marit Törnqvist and Björn Berg. The transformation into comic strips was quite successful mainly in the 1970s both within Sweden and approximately twenty countries. Some re-editions appear, but the illustrations by Ingrid Vang Nyman remain dominant for the comic books. Moreover, Lindgren’s children’s verses have been set to music and are regarded as part of the treasury of Swedish children’s songs. Thus, Lindgren’s work has turned into a multimedia system, covering all media, from print media and audiovisual media to digital media. This intermedial converting
demonstrates the high popularity of Astrid Lindgren until the present. In addition, Lindgren’s works have had and still have a considerable impact on international children’s literature. This was due to the innovative concepts of childhood inherent in her work, but also to the variety of new topics and narrative styles which largely contribute to the demanding artistic quality of Lindgren’s children’s books.
