Johan August Strindberg (1849–1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, and writer. His satire The Red Room (1879) is regarded as Sweden’s first modern novel. He also wrote prolifically in the fields of fiction, criticism, social commentary, science, economics, philosophy, and religion.
Born in Stockholm, Strindberg was the illegitimate son of his father’s mistress, whom his father later married. Strindberg grew up in acute poverty. He tried to become an actor and failed, but his stage experience persuaded him to pursue a career as a playwright.
Strindberg focused on subjective, psychological experience as the setting for his plays. Drawing on the insights of Henrik Ibsen and the naturalism of Emile Zola, Strindberg wrote plays such as The Father (1887) and Miss Julie (1888) which depict a bitter power struggle between the sexes. Later plays such as A Dream Play (1902) were characteristically tense. His last drama, Stora landsvägen (The Great Highway; 1909,) contains many autobiographical elements.
Strindberg exerted a significant influence on modern drama as a source for naturalism, expressionism, and various experimental modes on the contemporary stage.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by August Strindberg
I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves.
—August Strindberg
Antipathy, dissimilarity of views, hate, contempt, can accompany true love.
—August Strindberg
Why is it so painful to watch a person sink? Because there is something unnatural in it, for nature demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward step means wasted energy.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Failure
People are constantly clamoring for the joy of life. As for me, I find the joy of life in the hard and cruel battle of life—to learn something is a joy to me.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Learning
I always disliked dogs, those protectors of cowards who lack the courage to fight an assailant themselves.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Dogs
I hated her now with a hatred more fatal than indifference because it was the other side of love.
—August Strindberg
Topics: Love
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Ingrid Bergman Swedish Actor
Henrik Ibsen Norwegian Playwright
Ingmar Bergman Swedish Film and Stage Director
Christina, Queen of Sweden Swedish Monarch
Maurice Maeterlinck Belgian Dramatist
George Bernard Shaw Irish Playwright
Dorothy L. Sayers English Novelist, Playwright
Arthur Miller American Playwright
W. Somerset Maugham British Novelist
Tennessee Williams American Playwright