The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Boye, Karin
(kä´rn bô´y) (KEY) , 19001941, Swedish poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Boyes volumes of poetry, including Moln [clouds] (1922) and Glömda land [forgotten land] (1924), reveal an austere and ardent idealism as well as a seriousness and social awareness equal to that of her prose fiction. Her early novels, e.g., Astarte (1931) and Kris [crisis] (1934), are stylized and expressionist in style. Kallocain (1941), her last novel, is a fierce protest against totalitarianism. She was a central figure in the modernist movement in Scandinavian literature. Her main concerns included Christianity, socialism, lesbianism, and psychoanalysis. Boye died an apparent suicide at 40.