The Literary Journalism of Moa Martinson (1890–1964) Anna Hoyles Submission for the degree of PhD January 2021 School of English and Journalism College of Arts University of Lincoln Abstract This thesis brings to the fore the little-known journalism of the Swedish novelist Moa Martinson (1890–1964). Using a sample of 253 articles, spanning the years 1922–1960, it explores Martinson’s use of her class-based knowledge to expound her political and social ideas through her journalism. The articles, mainly published in syndicalist, anarchist, socialist and feminist newspapers, are analysed using close reading. Placing Martinson within her social and historical contexts, this study argues that Martinson’s work is literary journalism, a field where women, working-class writers (Roberts, 2012) and the Scandinavian countries (Tulloch and Keeble, 2012) are all underrepresented.
In doing so, it highlights her narrative and descriptive skills, and in particular her distinctive journalistic voice. The thesis draws attention to two key aspects where the study of Martinson’s work may contribute to the theory of literary journalism. Firstly, in her deployment of the oral tradition she shows the potential for literary journalism to incorporate many of orality’s techniques as authenticating and reader-engagement approaches. Secondly, she exhibits an unusual, but powerful, attitude to literary journalism’s strategy of immersion.
She writes from a world in which she has been submerged since birth: in doing so, personal experience becomes a form of immersion and her primary source of authority. In her hands, life events become a rhetorical tool to provide authority for her both as a writer and as a political activist. To illustrate these points, the thesis focuses on several major themes in Martinson’s journalism: the importance of maternal love and authority; a rejection of corporal punishment; and a damming indictment of the practice of charity, complemented by a belief in solidarity and mutual aid. Acknowledgements With huge thanks: to my parents, Gun-Britt and David Hoyles, who put up with an awful lot and gave a great deal, and without whom I could never have completed this thesis; to Peter Hickman for his patience, support, proofreading, and provision of beans on toast; to Jane Chapman for motivating me to do a PhD and for giving me opportunities that opened up a whole new world; to Amy Culley for her encouragement and excellent advice; to Moa Holmqvist for generously sharing her research data; to John and Thomas Hoyles, Alice Davis, Amara Crozier, Chris Blake, Jayne Davies, Lioba Suchenwirth, Rosalyn Spencer and Sally Cook for years of encouragement and of generosity in subsidising a perpetual student; to Rosalyn and Jayne also for all our study sessions and to Chris for providing me with the opportunity to do the MA which led to the PhD.
Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Contents Chapter 1: Introduction. 1 Chapter 2: Locating Martinson: Archives and Translation. 23 Chapter 3: Literature review: Oral traditions, Literary Journalism, and Martinson’s Recovery. 35 Chapter 4: Martinson’s Voice, Persona, and the Use of Experience.
83 Chapter 5: Martinson’s use of Maternal Identity in the Political Struggle. 125 Chapter 6: Martinson’s Rejection of Corporal Punishment by the Use of Practical Example. 159 Chapter 7: ‘Real People Hate Philanthropy’ – Martinson’s Rejection of Charity in Favour of Mutual Aid. 216 Chapter 1: Introduction […] we shouldn’t overlook other, less elite sources – where we may find not the ‘usual suspects’ (Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, et al.) but others with original visions of literary journalism and the requisite abilities to realise them.
Who knows how our historical understanding of literary journalism might evolve, when we uncover such voices and study them? (Roberts, 2012, 82) This thesis discusses the literary journalism of the Swedish ‘proletarian’ writer Moa Martinson (1890–1964). Although she wrote over 250 articles, Martinson’s journalism is relatively unstudied in Sweden, and is unknown in the English-speaking world. In posing the question ‘how did Martinson use her literary journalism to articulate her political ideas?’, this thesis sets Martinson’s work within literary journalism, where it has not previously been considered. Martinson’s voice deserves to be heard for several reasons, not least of all because of whom she was.
Swedish, working class and a woman – all categories severely underrepresented in journalism and literary journalism studies; through Martinson, we gain an insight into lives rarely heard from in the first person. Martinson also deserves recognition for her influence on subsequent Swedish writers leading up to the present day. Proletarian fiction is part of the literary canon in Sweden, and, as she is often the sole female representative within this, her impact should not be underestimated. 1 In this way, the thesis aims to contribute to the more inclusive history of literary journalism in the early 20th century, called for by Roberts above.
Once women such as Martinson are taken into account, the result will be, as Roberts points out, ‘a different history of literary journalism, one much more nuanced than we know now’ (ibid. This will include new outlooks on the world and its problems, and new stylistic dimensions to literary journalism. 1 Martinson has received acknowledgment from the labour movement in the form the annual Moa Martinson prize, which is awarded to those who, in the view of Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund (the Swedish Workers’ Educational Association) and the literary society Moas Vänner (Moa’s Friends), write ‘in the spirit of’ Martinson. 1 This thesis argues that Martinson contributes fresh perspectives to the field of literary journalism in the form of her particular authorial voice, with its deployment of the oral tradition and the rhetorical use of personal experience (particularly in relation to motherhood), both of which provided authority in her work when countering political arguments.
By bringing theoretical issues down to a practical level with examples from everyday life, Martinson employed her own experiences, and those of her friends’ and neighbours, to illustrate the veracity of her arguments, thus melding the personal and the political. Lived experience here became a form of ‘immersion’, a concept integral to literary journalism but rarely seen in the mode adopted by Martinson. This study examines Martinson’s ‘factual’ journalism, but draws on her fiction, both articles and books, at times to shed further light on her journalism. It adopts a critical empathetic approach using close reading and contextual analysis.
Previous work on Martinson has had a primarily feminist outlook, and, whilst acknowledging the importance of this viewpoint, this thesis does not offer an in-depth feminist analysis nor one of class analysis. Martinson’s use of personal experience in her writing as an overarching trope means that the practical details of her life, and the socio-economic and political context within which she lived and worked, are of particular importance to readers. As she is, in addition, little known to English speakers, this introductory chapter sets out her background, before her writing is discussed in detail in subsequent chapters. Firstly, however, the Introduction takes a closer look at the relevance of studying Martinson’s work today, but with the aspects pertaining to the theory of literary journalism being primarily discussed in the literature review.
Why is Martinson’s literary journalism of importance? Firstly, and most importantly, Martinson’s newspaper work is (mostly) a joy to read and merits reaching a broader audience – including non-Swedish speakers, for whom her articles are currently inaccessible. Almost a century since its publication, her writing is often funny, 2 empathetic, gripping and principled, despite, at times, also being contradictory, erratic in quality and lacking in nuance. Appearing predominately in the radical media, Martinson’s work managed to be both highly political and eminently readable, with an informal and commonsensical manner that made her a controversial, but popular figure.2 Secondly, there has been no study, longer than a chapter, on Martinson in English at all and no recognition of her as a literary journalist in any language. In Sweden, Martinson’s 15 novels have been studied, but her journalism has primarily been perceived as a stepping stone to her fiction and has been examined, when at all, predominantly in this context.
As is often the case with journalism, Martinson’s writing in newspapers and magazines has been considered the less developed precursor to her fiction and has not been identified as literary journalism. The latter is a hitherto nascent area of research in Sweden. Consequently, this thesis is the first to recognise parts of Martinson’s writing as literary journalism and to focus on it, and her journalism as a whole, as a significant body of work in itself. It also explores themes within her writing that either have been noted but left undeveloped in other studies or are completely new.
The latter include Martinson’s objections to charity and her defence of the ‘outsider’. For the purposes of this study, journalism is identified as non-fiction writing published in newspapers and magazines. The definition of literary journalism is discussed in the following two chapters; however, as a working explanation for this introduction, it can be said to be a branch of journalism where as much attention is paid to how one writes as to the subject matter. The text is not only factual but also uses tropes commonly associated with literature to engage the reader, most importantly narrative and description.
For Greenberg, ‘If there is a single thing that distinguishes literary journalism from other forms of reporting it is the use of narrative rather than expository prose’ (Greenberg, 2014, 517). The journalist Gay Talese 2 Radical media is defined by John D. Downing as ‘generally small-scale and in many different forms, that express an alternative vision to hegemonic policies, priorities, and perspectives’ (Downing, 2001, v). 3 calls this ‘the literature of reality’ (Talese, 1996, 4).
Max Weber puts it succinctly as ‘literary non-fiction’ (Weber, 1980, 1). Another of many alternative, and telling, labels is therefore ‘creative non-fiction’. In establishing much of Martinson’s writing in newspapers and magazines as literary journalism attention is drawn, in this thesis, to her use of the first person and acknowledged subjectivity, her descriptive language, her narrative techniques, and her use of details and dialogue – all signs of literary journalism, as is discussed in the next chapter. These were not serendipitous flourishes: Martinson was well read and particularly enjoyed the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Sand and William Somerset Maugham.
The breadth of her reading is evident in one 1942 article alone, in which she references Zoroaster, Catullus, Homer, the Phoenicians, Brueghel, Dostoevsky, St Francis, Timon of Athens, Spinoza and Einstein (Martinson, 1942). In so doing she is claiming a literary status for journalism, just as the current day literary journalist Svetlana Alexievich does with her ‘unremitting’ (Hartsock, 2016, 89) literary references in Boys in Zinc (2017). Notwithstanding her literary influences Martinson’s press articles and novels also show the impact of oral sources, which she acknowledged several times. Many of the tropes of literary journalism are also those of preliterate storytelling, and Chapters 2 and 3 explore the overlap between the two.
Thirdly, Martinson’s work is of importance in that it gives a voice and sheds light on the thought processes and life of a Swedish working-class woman, albeit an exceptional one, in the first half of the 20th century. Women are underrepresented, of course, in many areas, but not least in journalism and literary journalism. Martinson’s gender made her unusual enough in this area without her socio-economic status, but working-class women have, in particular, ‘left such a meagre body of literary material about themselves’ (Tebbutt, 1995, 26) that to hear such a literary voice is rare indeed. 4 The North American writer and activist Tillie Olsen is at present the literary journalist who comes closest to Martinson in both word and deed.
For Olsen, Martinson is ‘a writer of international stature and significance – in her life as well as her work’ (Olsen, n. A generation younger than the Swede Olsen was instrumental in the publication of the English translations of two of Martinson’s novels through the Feminist Press in New York, the first in 1973.