Vilhelm Moberg

(1898-1973)
Vilhelm Moberg was born on 20 August 1898 in Moshultamåla in the Parish of Algutsboda. He spent the first nine years of his life at the tenement soldier’s cottage in Moshultamåla that his father, territorial soldier no 132 Karl Moberg, took over in 1888. In 1907 the family moved to a small farm in the village of Moshultamåla. This was Ida Moberg’s family home, which was bought back with money from her family in America. In 1906 the young Vilhelm started at Påvelsmåla School, deep in the forest. His teacher Maja Johansson did her best to encourage her equally talented and unruly pupil. When he was 11, Vilhelm started work as a carry in boy at Modala Glassworks. In 1916 an uncle in California sent money and a ticket to America for Vilhelm to emigrate, but his mother’s tears and his father’s promise that he could take a course at Grimslöv Folk High School meant that Vilhelm stayed. Vilhelm soon became a hard-working journalist for the papers and in 1921 he became Sweden’s youngest editor-in-chief. It was not long before his literary breakthrough, and with his epic novel suite about the emigrants, the Smålander and soldier’s son Vilhelm Moberg became world-famous.