Boye, Karin

Related Category: Scandinavian Literature: Biographies

(kä´rēn bô´yĕ), 1900–1941, Swedish poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Boye's volumes of poetry, including Moln [clouds] (1922) and Glömda land [forgotten land] (1924), reveal an austere and ardent idealism as well as a seriousness and social awareness equal to that of her prose fiction. Her early novels, e.g., Astarte (1931) and Kris [crisis] (1934), are stylized and expressionist in style. Kallocain (1941), her last novel, is a fierce protest against totalitarianism. She was a central figure in the modernist movement in Scandinavian literature. Her main concerns included Christianity, socialism, lesbianism, and psychoanalysis. Boye died an apparent suicide at 40.