Summary of The Emigrants
A young couple, along with their four children, live on a farm in Småland, southern Sweden. Faced with harsh farming conditions and poverty, they decide to emigrate to the United States in search of a better life. In the second part of the book, they set sail from Karlshamn on a challenging journey across the Atlantic to New York.
Reasons to read The Emigrants
“The Emigrants” is the first part of a series of four novels exploring Swedish emigration to the United States around 1850. The other novels in the quartet are “Unto a Good Land”, “The Settlers”, and “The Last Letter Home”. These novels were voted as the best Swedish books of the 20th century in a 1997 poll by Library in Focus and were also recognised as the most important Swedish books of all time in a 1998 poll by Sveriges Television. The novels have been adapted into several Swedish films and were also turned into a musical, “Kristina från Duvemåla”, by former ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. Vilhelm Moberg, the author of these novels, is widely regarded as one of the greatest Swedish writers of the 20th century.
Setting: Lessebo, Småland (Sweden)
Book set in Sweden: Ljuder in eastern Lessebo, Småland. The later novels deal with the family’s settling in Minnesota, USA. In fact, many 19th-century Swedish emigrants to America were impoverished farmers from regions such as Småland. A significant number settled in the American Midwest, in states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois.
Original title: Utvandrarna
Year of publication: 1949
Nr of pages: 366
