Pippi Longstocking

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Stockholm in 1941, Astrid Lindgren made up a story for her seven-year-old daughter, Karin, about a young girl who lived alone and had super-human strength. Karin named her Pippi Långstrump, or Pippi Longstocking in English. Four years later, Astrid submitted her story into a competition and it won. Her book, Pippi Långstrump, was published and became an overnight success. It’s now been translated into more than 70 languages, as well as being made into more than 40 TV series and films. Rachel Naylor speaks to Astrid’s daughter, Karin Nyman. (Photo: Astrid Lindgren. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for listening to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service, with me,
0:08.1	Rachel Naylor.
0:09.1	I'm going to take you back more than 80 years to when the Swedish author, Astrid Lindgren,
0:14.7	wrote one of the most popular children's books in the world, Pippi Longstocking.
0:19.6	I've been speaking to her daughter, for whom she wrote the story.
0:28.0	She's 1941, and we're in Stockholm in Sweden.
0:32.1	Seven-year-old Karen Neeman is off school sick, and she's bored.
0:36.5	I had no entertainment around me at all, I mean, there was no television these days, and
0:43.1	I had no computer.
0:45.4	So I wanted my mother to tell me stories all the time, especially at bedtime.
0:53.6	And she did.
0:54.6	She told me stories.
0:56.1	She was sick in bed, and she pestered every evening and said,
1:02.1	«Mom, tell me something, and I said, what shall I tell?»
1:06.1	One evening she was, I think, exhausted, and she said,
1:12.6	«But what on earth could I tell you more now?»
1:17.1	And I said,
1:18.6	«Beretta om Pippi Longstocking, tell me about Pippi Longstocking».
1:24.1	I made up a name, not intended to be something special at all.
1:30.1	I just had to give her something to work on.
1:34.1	So I said, «Pippi Longstocking».
1:37.1	She invented a name in that very moment.
	...

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