I heard this morning that
Ying Toijer-Nilsson had passed away. She wasn't well known
internationally, but acknowledged in Scandinavia as one of the best
children's literature scholars of the older generation. Her books on
gender on death and on religion in children's literature were among the first
of their kind. She was also a Selma Lagerlöf scholar and a feminist
critic, and she reviewed children's books in a large Swedish morning
newspaper. She was a freelancer, but she received an honorary
doctorate for her brilliant research.
I met Ying soon after I
had moved to Sweden. She had just published a book
on children's fantasy, which wasn't a hot topic then, so she
was as always ahead of her time. Since I planned to write my PhD on
fantasy I was a bit anxious, but saw, when I read the book, that she
was doing something completely different from what I was interested
in, and that there was room for more than one book on the subject. I
was taking a course in children's literature, and a fellow student
invited me to her critique group that was reading Ying's book. Ying
was invited too. My fellow student explained who I was, and after a
while Ying asked me whether I understood what she was saying. I
replied in probably not perfect, but quite acceptable Swedish. Ying
liked to recall this episode with marvelous self-irony.
Since she wasn't part of
the academia, she didn't attend the seminars at the department, but
we met at various events, and we also started a habit of having lunch
at each other's places every now and then, at least once a year. We
talked fantasy and many other things. Ying was a cat person, and from my travels I brought her cats of all
kinds for her collection. I didn't know at that time that I also was a
cat person, but we talked a lot about cats, particularly literary cats. We also talked about faith. Ying was deeply religious, and
I was exploring my own spirituality. She introduced me to C S Lewis's works
on Christianity.
Ying did, however, attend
at least one seminar where I presented my work in progress and where
my supervisor more or less chopped me into small bits and threw them
out of the window – she was like that. I went home and wept and
swore I would never again put my foot into the department. Ying called the
same evening and told me not to mind my supervisor (they were very
close friends). “You know she is like that”.
I was elected to the
Executive Board of the Selma Lagerlöf Society, of which my
supervisor was president and Ying secretary. This involved a couple
of board meetings and an annual membership meeting, as well as
various Lagerlöf-related events.
Then Ying invited me to
join the annual critics' retreat arranged by the Swedish Church in
the little town of Sigtuna, north of Stockholm. This was one of the
most exciting professional experiences in my life. It was a little
group of people from various disciplines, literature, art, music,
philosophy, theology, who would get together for three days and talk
to each other about some topic of common interest, not necessarily
related to religion or faith. For instance, Ying and I did a joint talk on dystopias in children's literature - about fifteen years before it became a trend. I met some wonderfully interesting
people there. It also helped me to break away from exclusively
children's literature studies, and for many years I reviewed fiction
and non-fiction for the cultural journal of the Swedish Church.
Eventually Ying left
Lagerlöf Society Board, but went on with Lagerlöf studies, edited
several volumes of her correspondence, wrote biographies of people
around Lagerlöf; but she also continued with children's literature,
and her book reviews were always brilliant. I read some just
a few weeks ago.
Ying was important
for many of us, younger scholars. She stayed away from academic
squabbles, and she had no personal interest in our academic
achievements, but she was always supportive, always encouraging, yet
never giving praise unless she meant it. And she was always cheerful
and full of vigour and humour.
May she rest in peace.
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