Enligt maria magdalena marianne fredriksson biography
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She started her career as a proofreader for a newspaper, but soon became a writer for the daily and weekly press, including the newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Allt i Hemmet, where she was chief editor from 1962 to 1974 before her sensation-provoking debut in 1980 with Evas bok (N), about Eve’s long journey back to Paradise and to herself after Cain’s murder of his brother Abel.
As in many of her later novels, such as Kains bok, 1981, Noreas saga, 1983, and Syndafloden, 1990, she blends a biblical motif with Jungian depth psychology.
Fredriksson brings in lots of stories familiar to us from the New Testament, but now in a different light. Enligt Maria Magdalena (According to Mary Magdelene) is an ancient story from another viewpoint, one rarely tackled, but here written with both imagination, considerable theological knowledge and a stern adherence to the facts, geographical, domestic, historical and/or mythical, in as far as they are “known” at all.
Long after the death of Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene is found married to the much older Greek silk merchant and Christian convert Leonidas.
Enligt Maria Magdalena
Her story starts with the Jewish childhood, the feeling of not belonging (she is fair-haired and blue-eyed while all the others are dark), the terrible death of her father and the slaughter of her entire family at the hands of the Romans.
They live a quiet, prosperous and harmonious life in Antioch. I read "Volgens Maria Magdalena".
Fredriksson [Swedish author] became VERY famous among Dutch readers in 1998 with her book Anna, Hanna and Johanna: Good book bringing to life three generations of women in Sweden.
This one does a great job of making the first century AD come to life for me.
Going on after that to read some of Elaine Pagel's book, it all began to make a lot of sense. She is also beautiful. He leaves Mary in the hands of Euphrosyne at a whorehouse, promising to pay for the child and to return for her. So simply written, short sentences. They think she can aid them in their great task to spread the word and they persuade her to write down everything she can remember about him.
They just don't get it.
Goodreader Harry Meier has an interesting take on the book:
"It sort of seems by the time we get to the end of the novel that Mary and Jesus were secular Swedes with a love-hate relationship with religion and more or less just wanting people to follow their inner illumination and be nice to one another."
Marianne Fredriksson is one of the most well-read writers in Sweden and grew up in a working-class home in Gothenburg, where in her young days she dreamed of becoming a writer.
This time the story -- and the storytelling -- seem to me wonderfully done.
Fredriksson is trying to explain how it could happen that Jesus' actual messages got so lost and distorted right from the get-go. Forgive ourselves, and thus our fellow human beings." 128
Barnabas and Paul: "But a church can't be built without definite rules and clear messages." Mary kept reminding them that Jesus said not to make rules and laws of his preaching, but the apostles could not understand this.
She falls deeply in love with him and accompanies him on his mission to spread the word, and to heal the sick, the lame, the blind and to preach love. But this is not what the apostles have in mind…
ABOUT THE BOOK
First published by Wahlström & Widstrand, 1997
255 pages
RIGHTS SOLD TO
Sweden, Wahlström & Widstrand
Sweden, Earbooks (audio book)
Sweden, Natur & Kultur
Denmark, Forlaget Fremad
Denmark, Gyldendal (audio book)
Norway, Damm & Son
Finland, Otava
Finland, Suomen Äänikirjat (audio book)
Iceland, Vaka Helgafell
Germany, S.Fischer/Krüger Verlag
Germany, Der Hör Verlag (audio book)
The Netherlands, De Geus
UK, Orion (UK & Commonwealth)
US, Hampton Roads (incl.
Canada)
France, Éditions Ramsay
Spain, Emecé Editores (World Spanish incl. The women’s position in Judaism has always irked her and the new ideas that the young man presents when he claims that all people are equal, appeals to her.