The Defence of a Fool

About “The Defence of a Fool”

The Defence of a Fool is an autobiographical novel by Swedish writer August Strindberg. It is a lightly fictionalized account of his life from 1874 to 1887, focusing on his first marriage to Siri von Essen. The book was written in French in 1887–1888. It was first published in German in 1893 and then in French in 1895, but the French edition had significant alterations that were not discovered until 1973. At that time, the original manuscript, thought to be lost, was found in a safe in Oslo among papers belonging to Strindberg's friend, the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. A new Swedish translation was published in 1976. The book has also been translated into English under several titles, including The Confession of a Fool and A Madman's Defence. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)