She was also a member of the Swedish literary institution Samfundet De Nio (The Nine Society) from 1931 until her death in 1941.īoye's novel 'Crisis' ( Kris) depicts her religious crisis and lesbianism. She translated many of Eliot's works into Swedish she and Mesterton translated ' The Waste Land'.īoye is perhaps most famous for her poems, the most well-known of which are 'Yes, of course it hurts' (Swedish: Ja visst gör det ont) and 'In motion' ( I rörelse) from her collections of poems 'The Hearths' ( Härdarna), 1927, and 'For the sake of the tree' ( För trädets skull), 1935. Eliot and the Surrealists to Swedish readers. In 1931, Boye, together with Erik Mesterton and Josef Riwkin, founded the poetry magazine Spektrum, introducing T. She was also a member of the women's organization Nya Idun. During her time in Uppsala and until 1930, Boye was a member of the Swedish Clarté League, a socialist group that was strongly antifascist. She studied at Uppsala University from 1921 to 1926 and debuted in 1922 with a collection of poems, 'Clouds' (Swedish: Moln). In Stockholm, she studied at the Åhlinska skolan until 1920. In Sweden, she is acclaimed as a poet, but internationally, she is best known for the dystopian science fiction novel Kallocain (1940).īoye was born in Gothenburg (Göteborg), Sweden and moved with her family to Stockholm in 1909.

info) 26 October 1900 – 24 April 1941) was a Swedish poet and novelist.

As in Orwell's novel, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.The statue of Boye on Kungsportsavenyn, outside the Gothenburg City Library ( Stadsbiblioteket) He eventually becomes a prisoner scientist in the 'Universal State', where he continues his work. The protagonist's fatal Invention of the eponymous truth Drug only generates further repression in the 'World State', as the involuntary self-betraying inner thoughts of everyone are now punishable.

In Boye's novel, the 'World State' is locked in a condition of perpetual War with the 'Universal State' to the East both states – each of them claustrophobic warren-like male-dominated repressive societies – are gripped by Paranoia and fear, with Thought Police ubiquitous. George Orwell, whose novel adds World War Two to the mix, almost certainly did not encounter the text, which did not appear in English until long after his death but Kallocain and Nineteen Eighty-Four ( 1949) depict similarly desperate worlds in remarkably similar terms.

(1900-1941) Swedish poet and author, whose first-hand experience of the fall of Weimar Germany during 1932-1934 directly influenced the work for which she is best-known by English-language readers, the Dystopia Kallocain ( 1940 trans Gustav Lannestock 1966), one of the several great dystopias set in a dreaded Near Future to have appeared in the decades-long aftermath of World War One.

Kallocain boye