Leo Ågren

Karl Leo Johannes Ågren (born July 26, 1928 in Nykarleby , Finland , † June 6, 1984 in Stockholm ) was a Finnish-Swedish writer and brother of Erik and Gösta Ågren .

life and work

Ågren, who came from a farming family, attended secondary school and initially completed an apprenticeship as a printer .

In his works he primarily described the hard life of the rural population in Finland in a realistic and critical manner. For example, his debut novel Hunger i skördetid (1954, “Hunger in the Harvest Time”) is set in the agricultural milieu of Österbotten . In his great trilogy of novels Kungsådern (1957, “The Royal Vein ”), När gudarna dör (1959, “When the Gods Die”) and Fädrens blod (1961, “The Blood of the Fathers”), Ågren described the hard fate of the Finnish rural population from the 18th century to the end of the First World War . His last novel Krigshistoria (1971), a drastic portrayal of the war, its futility and its destructive effects , also received a lot of attention .

In 1960 his only volume of poetry, Stämmor i nordannatten (“Voices in the polar night”) was published.

Ågren lived in Stockholm since 1964, where he worked as a printer for the major Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter from 1964 to 1976 .

Works (selection)

Novels

• Hunger cycle

1. Hunger i skördetid. Novel . Söderström, Helsinki 1954.
2. Motsols. Fortsättning på “Hunger i skördetid” . Söderström, Helsinki 1955.

• Kungsådern trilogy

1. Kungsådern . Söderström, Helsinki 1957.
2. När gudarna dör . Söderström, Helsinki 1959.
3. Fädrens blod . Söderström, Helsinki 1961.

• Ballad. Novel . Söderström, Helsinki 1962.
  • German translation: Under a black sky . Roman, from the Swedish by Erik Gloßmann. Osburg Verlag, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-95510-053-7 .
• Krigshistoria. Novel . Seelig, Solna 1971.
  • German translation: Leo Nilheim's story . Roman, from the Swedish by Erik Gloßmann. Osburg Verlag, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-95510-038-4 .

Poetry

• Stämmor i north anna . Söderström, Helsinki 1960.

literature

• Britt Ågren: En bok om Leo . Söderström, Helsinki 1996, ISBN 951-52-1625-7 .
• Gösta Ågren: En man gick genom stormen. Leo Ågrens liv och diktning . Edition Ågren, Vasa 1983, ISBN 951-9367-16-0 .

Film adaptations

• Gösta Ågren (Director): Ballad . 1968 (based on the novel of the same name).

Web links

• Short biography ( memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on Nykarlebyvyer (Swedish)
• Short biography ( memento of October 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the city of Nykarleby (Swedish)