ABSTRACT
Voices of a new kind began to appear in the Swedish novel around 1930, with writers from a proletarian background who represented a distinctly working-class point of view in both autobiographical and historical novels. Vilhelm Moberg's work deals with the impoverished, tradition-bound Smaland peasant society from which he came, particularly in the autobiographical trilogy Siinkt sedebetyg (1935; Memory of Youth), Somnlos (1937; Sleepless Nights), and Giv ass jorden! (1939; The Earth Is Ours) . In Soldat med brutet geviir (1944; partially translated as When I Was a Child), Moberg idealizes himself as a fighter for the common man, for pacifism, and for the Social Democratic Party. Moberg's greatest accomplishment was a tetralogy about emigration to the United States, consisting of Utvandrarna (1949; The Emigrants), Invandrarna (1952; Unto a Good Land), Nybyggarna (1956; The Settlers), and Sista brevet till Sverige (1959; Last Letter Home).
