The Prince Without a Shadow

Grownups Read Princess Stories

The Prince Without a Shadow was written by Jeanna Oterdahl (1897-1965) Jeanna Oterdahl was the daughter of Captain Philip Oterdahl and Eva Frögren. She was the eldest of five siblings. After graduating as a teacher in Stockholm in 1901, Oterdahl was employed at Mathilda Hall's school in Gothenburg (where she herself was a student) but at the same time devoted herself to extensive writing. In the 1920s, she reduced her teaching hours and focused on writing. Several of her morning rallies were broadcast on radio all over Sweden, including a speech in the spring of 1944 in which she condemned anti-Semitism . There are several similar examples of her anti-fascism. Among other things, she was critical of the permit traffic through Sweden. Her main role model was Natanael Beskow and Oterdahl became a member of his association, the Association for Christian Social Life . Around 1950, she joined the Quakers , but as early as 1927, one of her characters had met the Quakers. Oterdahl became a frequently hired lecturer (often with the subheading "non-profit goods") in a number of subjects: women's history , the place of childhood in literary history, inferiority complexes and old age. These lectures probably gave her a different audience than her books. Oterdahl was a well-known author during her lifetime, but has gradually been more and more forgotten. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, she is not mentioned in major literary biographies or even very much in special dictionaries, something that may be due to the fact that she is seen as a children's writer or a psalm writer. Jeanna Oterdahl is buried in a family grave at Östra kyrkogården in Gothenburg. She was unmarried.