Swedish Ambassador Ann Mawe (4th from left) joins Head of the International Cooperation Department of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Nguyen Phuong Hoa (4th from right) to cut the ribbon to open the exhibition on December 14, 2020. (Photo: Quoc Cuong)

The Pippi Longstocking exhibition was prepared by the Swedish Institute to be displayed by Swedish embassies around the world. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic very few embassies have been able to organize a physical exhibition and on-line activities have been arranged instead. 

“We are fortunate to be able to show the exhibition here today at the beautiful National Library, thanks to Vietnam’s successful COVID-19 strategy,” Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam Ann Mawe said at the exhibition’s opening ceremony.

Over the past 75 years, Pippi Longstocking has travelled around the world and been translated into 77 languages. Thanks to Pippi, Astrid Lindgren became the world’s fourth-most-translated children’s author. Pippi Longstocking, known as “Pippi Tất dài” in Vietnam, was first published in Vietnam in 2011.

Pippi has not grown older at all. She is forever a brave, humorous, and generous nine-year-old girl. She not only has the strength to lift a horse, but the superpower to travel through time and space. 

 The lovely girl with brown and black stockings in oversized shoes showed many kids and adults around the world what it means to be courageous, strong, and a good friend. She also showed that it is OK to be different and dream of far horizons.

A visitor to the exhibition and some students of Trung Hoa secondary school talk about Pippi.

Pippi Longstocking’s greatest strength, which has gone far beyond the author’s expectation, is inspiration. Pippi has inspired generations of children and adults to be independent and go beyond normal limits. She has emerged from the books to play a role in modern life. We see her image in Greta Thunberg, a determined and self-reliant young girl fighting tirelessly for environmental protection, who has become a role model for millions of children around the world.

Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren

 Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) created Pippi Longstocking in 1941 at the request of her little daughter, who was sick in bed for a long time and wanted her mother to call her by the strange name ‘Pippi Longstocking’. Lindgren is considered a Swedish literary icon, loved throughout Europe and the world for her children's stories. Today, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is considered the “Nobel prize for children’s literature”.  

In conjunction with the free-admission exhibition, which will run through December 27, a book-reading session was held for students from Hanoi’s Trung Hoa secondary school. As Ambassador Mawe said, “Reading books in translation fosters understanding among people and cultures.”

An exhibition visitor appears pleased to read the book's description.

Swedish Ambassador Ann Mawe (left) reads from the book Pippi Longstocking for a group of school students at the National Library of Vietnam on December 15, 2020.