Lindgren, living with her young family in Stockholm, kept extensive diaries throughout the Second World War, which later lay forgotten in a laundry basket for many years. They offer a unique account of a world devastated by conflict, viewed through the eyes of a wife, a mother, an aspiring writer and a guilt-ridden citizen of a neutral state. Alongside accounts of military, political and global events we read vignettes of domestic life, rationing, children’s birthdays, summer holidays with relatives, growing marital tension and the excitement of taking wing as a children’s writer.