Simon Johnson Stories

Includes a photocopied issue of "Free Passage," a quarterly journal from Spring 1980, containing novelist Simon Johnson's short stories, as well as dedications to Norman Voldal and Harold "Bobby" Johnson, and "I Skogen (In the Woods)" a poem by Johnson set to music by Norwegian composer, Sigvart A. Hofland. Also included is another article from "Dakota Arts Quarterly" (Spring 1980) written as a forward by Rodney Nelson, one of the translators of the short stories.
The short stories included in the journal are: "Inga from the Grove," "Jim's Last Day," "From Diggings," "Louis Alfred & John Otto," "The Quarantine."

Biographical Note

Simon Johnson emigrated with his family from Norway to the United States in the 1880s. They had a farm in Hillsboro, North Dakota. The only son among many daughters, Johnson was a prolific writer as a young man. In 1920 he became the editor of the Normanden paper in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He married in middle age and became the editor of the Decorah-Posten in Iowa. He became very well known for his work in the Scandinavian-American community. Johnson's success in American did not go unnoticed in Norway. In 1954 he was made a Knight of the Royal Order of St. Olav. As Norwegian readership declined in the U.S., Johnson faded out of the spotlight. He passed away in 1970.