Astrid Lindgren’s excellence as a writer is known the world over. No Swedish author has been translated into as many languages, and the estimated number of her books sold to date world-wide is approximately 170 million copies.
That her artistry is of global quality and appeal becomes very evident when you examine the distribution records. A story such as the picture book, A Day at Bullerby, for example has been published in Vietnamese, English, Icelandic, Japanese, Frisian, Polish and French.
Astrid Lindgren’s global success is unparalleled and there are still new editions being printed into foreign languages even though she died in 2002 and many years have passed since she wrote her last big story, Ronja the Robber’s Daughter (1981).

In 1945, Pippi Longstocking was published in Sweden, and as early as the following year Astrid Lindgren had the pleasure of seeing it distributed in Norway, Denmark and Finland. In 1947, Britt Mari lättar sitt hjärta was distributed in Scandinavia along with Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist ( BillBergson, Master Detective). Within two years Astrid Lindgren had become an author whose books were being read in all of Scandinavia.
The big break abroad came in 1949 when a German publisher contacted Rabén & Sjögren. Astrid Lindgren later described him as “the brown-eyed, sweetly smiling Friedrich Oetinger in his somewhat shabby overcoat”. In spite of the fact that five German publishers had already turned down the opportunity of becoming distributors for Pippi Longstocking, Friedrich Oetinger dared to put his money on that book – and the rest is a success-story in the German publishing world.
Today, Verlag Friedrich Oetinger is the distributor for just about everything Astrid Lindgren has written and is very actively promoting her books. That is probably one of the reasons why Astrid Lindgren continues to be so big in Germany; her stories are loved by Germans every bit as much as by Swedes.

Photo: Jacob Forsell