Alva Myrdal: A Daughter's Memoir

Alva Myrdal (1902-1986), diplomat, feminist, and one of the founders of the Swedish welfare state, exemplifies in her extraordinary life the joys, the sorrows, and the achievements of women in our time. Her daughter shows us with unflinching candor how Myrdal struggled to attain in her private life the freedom and opportunity which she won for millions of other women. Reviews

”A fascinating story, through which certain great social themes play themselves as clearly as in Aeschylus or Ibsen.” Ursela Le Guin — Ursela Le Guin The New York Times Book Review

”This book unites the lives of three truly remarkable people of our time—Alva Myrdal, urgent in the pursuit of women’s rights and peace, ambassador, Swedish cabinet minister, and Nobel Prize winner; Gunnar Myrdal, her husband, the most innovative and diversely concerned economist of his generation; also a Swedish minister and also a Nobel Prize winner; and Sissela, their daughter. The story is fascinating, both in scope and detail. — John Kenneth Galbraith

”A remarkable, shimmering portrait.” — Boston Globe

”Loving, lucid...inspiring.” — St. Louis Post Dispatch

”[Alva Myrdal’s] life...as eloquent in its compromises as in its public success, can speak again in her daughter’s words.” Mary Catherine Bateson — Mary Catherine Bateson Washington Post

By Sissela Bok, paperback, 375 pages, in English