When I Was a Child: An Autobiographical Novel

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the poverty-stricken Swedish region of Småland, young Valter, the son of a soldier, explores the world around him and watches his older brothers emigrate to America. In this novel of the life of a farm boy, first published in three volumes in 1946, Vilhelm Moberg sensitively explores his own childhood.

When Valter, a boy with great imagination, describes the exciting things he sees so vividly, he is punished for lying, so he learns to write his s...