Selma Lagerlöf won the Nobel Prize in 1909, and was the first woman to do so, and was also the first Swedish writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. She was so popular that her books were translated into 34 languages.. Her novels describe her homeland of Sweden, and in Jerusalem the focus is on the province of Dalecarlia. The novel describes how a Chicago mystic sparks a religious revival in the community that leads people to sell their possessions and conduct a mass pilgrimage to Jerusalem.