My beautiful big hatred. A biography of Victoria Benedictsson

Is the woman a female or a human? Is the man a ruler or a slave? Should reason prevail or Christian morality?

The questions that were formulated in the second half of the 19th century set Europe on fire, and it was the Nordic writers and intellectuals, with names like Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg and Georg Brandes, who lit the fire.

Elisabeth Åsbrink has closely followed the Swedish writer Victoria Benedictsson – who turned herself into the mail persona Ernst Ahlgren – from the farm in the south of Sweden over the claustrophobic married life in the postmaster’s residence, over her love story with the literary icon Georg Brandes, to the room at Hotel Leopold in Copenhagen where her life brutally ended, when she was only thirty-eight years old.

This is a biography of a thinking woman who tried to break the boundaries of gender and ended her life in a crescendo of emotions, in an age obsessed with literature, sex and death.

Read more here: Victoria Benedictsson assumed a male identity, achieved literary stardom, and took her own life. Then Strindberg stole it.

REVIEWS

”A magnificent biography.”  Alba

”Elisabeth Åsbrink has written a masterful biography … My big beautiful hatred is a rich, poetic portrayal of not only Victoria Benedictsson’s tragic life, but also of her contemporaries and a really interesting and entertaining description of the “morality feud”; the heated debate that took place in the Nordic literary environment in the 1880s between writers such as Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Amalie Skram, Mathilda Malling and many more.” Information

”Excellent … About this Swedish writer, who is an important name in Scandinavia’s modern breakthrough, Elisabeth Åsbrink has written a brilliant biography. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Six stars to My big beautiful hatred.” Jyllands-posten

”The fact that I think I know this story inside and out doesn’t matter, I devour Elisabeth Åsbrink’s book as if I had no idea how it will end.” Sydsvenskan

”Åsbrink […] writes so artistically and vividly. At times it even feels like an Agatha Christie detective story …” Expressen

”Benedictsson’s sentences rise from the paper and a lived experience emerges from the shadow of the archive. Cheeks glow and the phantom speaks.” Dagens Nyheter

”Artistic, vivid and very well written biography … The book is a great experience.”
Jette Holmgaard Greibe, Literature page

”A really thorough, well-written and respectful biography.” Weekendavisen