2025 Essays

Elin Wägner

Brunow, Dagmar

Elin Wägner was a Swedish journalist and writer as well as a suffragette, a feminist, an advocator for peace, and an early eco-critic. She was also one of the few screenwriters who managed to make the transition from silent to sound film. While she is a canonized figure in Swedish literary history, her name remains largely absent from film history, even though she worked in the Swedish film industry for decades. Her film work is glossed over by her biographers although she collaborated with prominent filmmakers, including Anna Hofman-Uddgren who was long regarded as Sweden’s first female director before Ebba Lindkvist got that credit. Just like Selma Lagerlöf, Wägner showed an early interest in the new medium of film, and her work in the film industry provided her with additional income.