Modern Woman

by Edith Södergran, CD Eskilson (Translator)

The trailblazing debut collection of Edith Södergran, a modernist visionary and one of the most influential poets to write in Swedish. Södergran’s daring, avant-garde work outraged many of her Finland-Swedish contemporaries who clung to traditional literary sensibilities. Through dynamic symbolism and fluid logic, the poems comprising her first collection fundamentally questioned early twentieth-century notions of what poetry is and what it can do. “Something like this has never been heard before,” noted critic and fellow Finland-Swedish poet Hagar Olsson about her work. During her short life, Södergran enacted the poet’s ultimate task of imagining previously unexplored possibilities for language, ushering literary modernism into Swedish-language writing and inspiring generations of writers since.

160 pages, Paperback

Published March 11, 2026

About the author

Edith Irene Södergran was a Swedish-speaking Finnish poet.

Södergran was born in St Petersburg in 1892. In 1907 Edith's father died from tuberculosis, and in the following year Edith was also diagnosed with the disease. She was sent to a sanatorium, but did not feel at ease there. The feelings of captivity caused by the disease and the sanatorium are a recurring theme in her poetry.

In October 1911, Edith and her mother traveled to Arosa in Switzerland where Edith was examined by different doctors. After a few months, she was transferred to the Davos-Dorf sanatorium. In May 1912, her condition had improved enough for her to return home. Eventually, the disease returned and Edith Södergran died in 1923 in her home in Raivola. She was 31 years old.