Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish author and the first woman writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Known internationally for Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (a story for children, in the most common translation The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, but the literal translation would be "Nils Holgersson's Wonderful Journey Through Sweden"), she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings."