Moberg, Carl Artur Vilhelm

Born Aug. 20, 1898, in Algutsboda, Smáland; died Aug. 8, 1973, in Våddö. Swedish author.

The son of a peasant, Moberg began his literary career in 1920. His realistic novels deal with the stratification of the Swedish peasantry and the coming of capitalism to the countryside; these novels include Raskens (1927) and the two-volume work comprising Far From the Highway (1929) and The Clenched Hands (1930). Moberg wrote the autobiographical trilogy The Earth Is Ours (1935–39), in which he appeals to city dwellers to return to the land as the source of personal freedom. His historical novel Ride This Night (1941) and the novel When I Was a Child (1944) are passionately antifascist.

Moberg also wrote a cycle of novels about the emigration of impoverished Swedes to the United States, including The Emigrants (1949) and The Last Letter Home (1959). He published sociopsychological plays, including The Wife (1929), Violence, (1933), and The Judge (1957; Russian translation, 1960), and comedies, including The Fairy-Tale Prince (1962; Russian translation, 1967). Moberg also wrote the novel Time on Earth (1963) and A History of the Swedish People (vols. 1–2, 1970).