Vimmerby is Astrid Lindgren’s town. She was born here and she always returned, despite living for more than 75 years in Stockholm; and now she lies buried here.

Memories of her happy childhood years in the vicarage in Näs, on the outskirts of town, influenced all that she wrote. In book after book she relived her childhood games, the intensity of her passion for life and the beauty of the surrounding countryside.
She went into town to go to school, to go to church and to Sunday School and sometimes to the market, it was only a short walk away in those days, not like today; now the town has grown beyond her childhood home. For those that have read The Children of Bullerbyn, Kalle Blomkvist, Madicken or Emil, it is easy to recognise the scenes she described in her books.

When the farm in Näs was closed in the mid 60s and the church sold off the land, Astrid and her brother, Gunnar Ericsson purchased the freehold on their childhood home with the two farm houses. Astrid Lindgren restored the houses as she remembered them and it became her place of residence whenever she visited Vimmerby. It still stands today as she left it.

Even when she lived in Stockholm she played an active role in the development of the town of her birth. When it was planned to name the streets after the characters from her book in the large area of suburbs in the northern part of town, she appealed to the people who ran the town to save Kohagen where she “first discovered what beauty was”. And when they wanted to demolish the house on the corner of Sevedegatan and Drottninggatan, where the Nightingale Museum now stands, she helped out by making a considerable donation, so that the building could be renovated instead. In many ways and in different circumstances, Astrid Lindgren has been able to make decisive contributions to the development of Vimmerby and to today’s flourishing township with trade and commercial interests that make many a larger town pale in comparison.