Strindberg on Twitter

It's a hundred years since he died, but Swedish author and playwright August Strindberg suddenly has a new life - on Twitter. 

  • August Strindberg (1849-1912) "resuscitated" on Twitter just in time for his centennial.

  • Strindberg on Twitter
    It's a hundred years since he died, but Swedish author and playwright August Strindberg suddenly has a new life ..on Twitter. Private persons and cultural institutions give him a voice on the networking, micro-blogging service, where users send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters.

  • August Strindberg (1849-1912), no doubt the greatest author in Swedish history, here with three of his children: Karin, Greta and Hans. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of Strindberg’s death.

  • “All things are relative, even age,” one August Strindberg writes on December 30. “A scent of celery has followed me a couple of months, everything tastes and smells of celery,” writes another. A third Strindberg, who paraphrases more freely, states: “The great day of uniformity. The Swede eats warm bread with filling, watches a silly film about knights and regrets his past.”

  • Pastry inspired by Strindberg - who was very interested in food and drink?

  • If you're on the left coast, don't miss the August Strindberg Centennial in the Bay Area

  • August Strindberg has officially entered the computer age and in many Twitter reincarnations. Behind one of the Twitter accounts, AugStrindberg, is Liljevalchs konsthall (the art gallery in Stockholm). In short daily tweets, Liljevalchs shares Strindberg’s work “Ockulta dagboken” as a preparation for their exhibition “August” scheduled for fall. Director of Communications at Liljevalchs, Annika Hansson Wretman, believes that August Strindberg himself would be active in social media had he lived today.

  • “Twitter, Facebook, Internet debates, you name it—he would’ve loved it. His own diary notes vacillate between highs and lows, just like people’s tweets today.” Hansson Wretman says there have been lots of reactions to Strindberg’s tweets, and many have added themselves as followers, and the followers are from all walks of life, from librarians to soccer fans. Expressen Kultur is behind another Strindberg Twitter account under the name “EnDjeflaMan” (A Hell of a Man), which mixes authentic Strindberg quotes with links to the newspaper’s articles regarding the centennial. There’s some friction between the different Strindbergs on Twitter, however. The unknown man or woman behind the account “_strindberg” lets his or her August speak out quite liberally, and this fictive Strindberg has shown anger over Liljevalch’s version. “He wrote something about being tired of us ‘stealing’ from ‘Ockulta dagboken’. But our own August didn’t respond to that. He never does,” Annika Hansson Wretman says and adds that she’s not too happy about people using the August Strindberg avatar without quoting the author correctly. “It’s a pity when people post quotes and you don’t know if Strindberg indeed said it or not.”

  • Dagens Nyheter did a brief Twitter-interview with “_strindberg”:
    DN: Why does August Strindberg twitter? Aren’t 140 characters a limitation for an artistic soul?
    “The limitation is a challenge. I adapt to the society that has such clear need of my fire.”
    DN: What do you think of others twittering under the name Strindberg?
    “Epigones! They take my old texts, re-publish them out of context and choose not to interact with people. To communicate is important!”

  • Catch up on Strindberg activities in the U.S. during 2012: Strindberg in the U.S. 2012 or see Nordstjernan - Events