Maja Hagerman
Quick Facts
Biography
Maja Anna Maria Hagerman (born 3 February 1960) is a Swedish author, journalist and TV-producer. She has published six books on Swedish history, early medieval and prehistoric times but also modern history, and made several historical documentaries for Swedish Television. She is honorary doctor at the Faculty of History and Philosophy at Uppsala University, promoted in 2012.
She made her debut with the book Spåren av kungens män. Om när Sverige blev ett kristet rike, on the making of the Swedish kingdom and its christianization. The book won the August prize for non-fiction in 1996.
In September 2015 she released the book Käraste Herman. Rasbiologen Herman Lundborgs gåta, on the physician and professor Herman Lundborg. He headed the world’s first state racial biology institute in Uppsala, Sweden, from 1922 to 1935, and was internationally well renowned for his research, especially among German-speaking supporters of racial hygiene. Like many of his German colleagues he supported the Nazis. Lundborg was obsessed by the threat of racial mixing between Sámi, Finns and Swedes. On his travels in the north, he was drawn to a woman of Finnish-Sámi descent, and had a child with her. The book was nominated for the August prize for best non-fiction of the year in Sweden.
Together with Claes Gabrielson, Hagerman also made a documentary on Lundborg, Hur gör man för att rädda ett folk?, which was broadcast on Swedish Television in January 2015. There is also an English version of the film, What Measures to Save a People? A film about Herman Lundborg, head of the Swedish State Institute for Race Biology.