Moa Martinson

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Statue of Moa Martinsson in Norrköping

Moa Martinson (born Helga Maria Swartz November 2 1890 in Vårdnäs, Linköping Municipality, dead August 5 1964 in Södertälje) was a Swedish author. She wrote several well-known novels, but also contributed to social democratic newspapers and labor publications.

The daughter of an unmarried factory girl, she belonged to a generation of Swedish authors with a working class background, including Vilhelm Moberg, Ivar Lo-Johansson, as well as her husband from 1929 to 1940, Harry Martinson.

Moa Martinson grew up in Norrköping. In her first marriage, to cement worker Karl Johansson, she had five children, two of which drowned in 1925. A few years later her husband killed himself. Her second marriage, to the fifteen years younger Harry Martinson, was a stormy affair, the couple separating, reuniting and finally divorcing in 1940.

Martinson's works focus on the life of women on the countryside and among the working class. Her autobiographical trilogy Mor gifter sig, Kyrkbröllop and Kungens rosor is perhaps her most well-known and popular work.