Johnson, Eyvind

Swedish author, born in Svartbjörnsbyn in the province of Norrbotten. When his father, who had been working with stone-cutting during the construction of the trunk line, contracted silicosis, Eyvind Johnson became an orphan and was taken care of by relatives. He only attended a six-year elementary school. However, he read a lot already as a child, and the extensive learning he had as an adult he acquired through personal studies. He started working when about 14 or 15 years old. In the course of his life, he worked among other things as a log driver, lumberjack, and farmhand, as well as at a brickworks, a sawmill, and a cinema. Eventually he also supported himself as a writer. Johnson has been described as a peaceful anarchist, and he was a member of the syndicalists and the young socialists in his youth. In 1919, he moved to Stockholm where, besides his work, he wrote articles, among other things in the periodical Brand of the young socialists. Together with some fellow writers, among them Rudolf Värnlund and Ragnar Holmström, he started the literary group De gröna (The Green). The group used to meet at cafés and in the 1920’s it published six issues of a periodical called Vår nutid.