"Since 1945, this waif with no mother or father has rarely been out of the bestseller lists and continues to inspire musicals and movies. Heyday Films, the outfit behind Paddington and James Bond, is now developing an English-language adaptation of her stories. What isn't generally known outside her native Sweden are the circumstances in which author Astrid Lindgren created Pippi during the darkest period of the second world war, under the shadow of Hitler and Stalin."
"After I have worked so many years making the film, I am totally clear that Pippi is a child of the war. She never would have existed if there were not these terrible times, Wilfried Hauke, the veteran German director behind new docudrama A World Gone Mad The War Diaries of Astrid Lindgren (which will have its international premiere early next year) tells me."
"In 1939, Lindgren was living a quiet middle-class life in Stockholm. She was a housewife in her early 30s with two young children. Her husband, Sture, had a well-paid job at the Swedish National Association of Motorists, and didn't spend much time at home. Sweden may have been one of the few European nations to remain politically neutral during the second world war, but Lindgren was an ardent anti-Nazi and a news junkie."
Pippi Longstocking is a mischievous, red-haired orphan with pigtails who has remained a bestseller since 1945 and inspired musicals, films, and new English-language adaptations. The character was conceived during the darkest years of World War II and reflects the era's anxieties under the shadows of Hitler and Stalin. Filmmaker Wilfried Hauke describes Pippi as a child of the war. A documentary-drama titled A World Gone Mad presents family testimony, reconstructions with verbatim dialogue, and archival detail. The creator lived in Stockholm in 1939 as a middle-class housewife with two children, held a secret wartime postal job, and was an ardent anti-Nazi and avid news reader.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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