Maria Friederike Cornelia "Frida" Strindberg (née Uhl; 4 April 1872 – 28 June 1943) was an Austrian

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

and translator, who was closely associated with many important figures in 20th-century literature.

Life and career

Uhl was the daughter of Friedrich Uhl, editor of the ''

Wiener Zeitung ''Wiener Zeitung'' () is an Austrian newspaper. First published as the ''Wiennerisches Diarium'' in 1703, it is one of the oldest newspapers in the world. Until April 2023, it was the official gazette of the government of the Republic of Austria ...

'', and Maria Uhl (née Rieschl), a Catholic. She met Swedish playwright

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (; ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 pla ...

in early 1893, when she was only 20; they soon married and she at once tried to organize a production of his work in England, and took his financial affairs in hand. They had a daughter, Kerstin. Strindberg did not approve of the active role Frida was taking in his business affairs, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1895. German playwright

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was the father of Frida's second child Friedrich. She sent her children to be cared for by her parents. With a later lover, the poet

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, she started the first German cabaret in 1900. She was closely involved with several writers of the Young Vienna movement, such as the poet Peter Altenberg for whom she organized a subscription, and the journalist Karl Kraus, whom she convinced to sponsor a reading of Wedekind's '' Pandora's Box.'' Her affair with the writer

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was particularly stormy. She threatened him on two separate occasions with a revolver. Details of this relationship were made public in 1905 when she sued him for harassing a detective she had hired to follow him. In 1908 she fired a gun in a Viennese hotel on New Year's Day. It is unclear whether this was a suicide attempt; she had recently written a number of suicide notes. The event caused a great scandal as Karl, 5th Prince Fugger von Babenhausen was a guest at the party. She fled to London. On 26 June 1912, she opened The Cave of the Golden Calf, a nightclub decorated by

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, Charles Ginner, and Spencer Gore.

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complimented her on her acumen. Other frequent guests of the establishment included

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Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...

, and

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. In 1914, she left for the United States, where she quickly secured a job with

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. In 1933–1934, Uhl published the work ''Strindberg and His Second Wife under the pseudonym Frida Strindberg,'' articulating her version of the marriage between her and August Strindberg. The translation into Swedish was by Karin Boye, with whom Uhl collaborated in Berlin. In 1937, she published the memoir '' Marriage with Genius''. She spent her last years in her family's summer residence at Mondsee and died there at the age of 71 in 1943.

References

* Eivor Martinus, ''Strindberg and Love'' Amber Lane Press, 2001. * Monica Strauss, ''Cruel Banquet: The Life and Loves of Frida Strindberg,'' Harcourt, New York, 2000

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uhl, Frida 1872 births 1943 deaths Austrian women writers Young Vienna Strindberg family Writers from Austria-Hungary