Die Legende von der Christrose

by Selma Lagerlöf, Maren Briswalter (Illustrator)

Vor langer Zeit verwandelte sich jedes Jahr zu Weihnachten der Winterwald in ein Paradies von Blumen, Licht und neuem Leben. Auf diese Weise feierte die Natur die Ankunft des Jesuskindes. So lange, bis eines Tages ein Mensch mit einem kalten, finsteren Herzen in diese prächtige Landschaft eindrang. Nur eine einzige Blume konnte aus dem Weihnachtswald gerettet werden: die Christrose. Zur Erinnerung an dieses einstige Wunder blüht sie jeden Winter, wenn die übrige Natur ruht. Maren Briswalter erweckt diese zauberhafte Legende von Selma Lagerlöf mit ihren herrlich stimmungsvollen Illustrationen zum Leben – ganz so, als wäre man selbst dabei gewesen.

32 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2024

About the author

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (1858-1940) was a Swedish author. In 1909 she became the first woman to ever receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings". She later also became the first female member of the Swedish Academy.

Born in the forested countryside of Sweden she was told many of the classic Swedish fairytales, which she would later use as inspiration in her magic realist writings. Since she for some of her early years had problems with her legs (she was born with a faulty hip) she would also spend a lot of time reading books such as the Bible.

As a young woman she was a teacher in the southern parts of Sweden for ten years before her first novel Gösta Berling's Saga was published. As her writer career progressed she would keep up a correspondance with some of her former female collegues for almost her entire life.

Lagerlöf never married and was almost certainly a lesbian (she never officially stated that she was, but most later researchers believe this to be the case). For many years her constant companion was fellow writer Sophie Elkan, with whom she traveled to Italy and the Middle East. Her visit to Palestine and a colony of Christians there, would inspire her to write Jerusalem, her story of Swedish farmers converting into a evangelical Christian group and travelling to "The American Colony" in Jerusalem.

Lagerlöf was involved in both women issues as well as politics. She would among other things help the Jewish writer Nelly Sachs to come to Sweden and donated her Nobel medal to the Finnish war effort against the Soviet union.

Outside of Sweden she's perhaps most widely known for her children's book Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (The Wonderful Adventures of Nils).