Gunilla Vigert
GUNILLA VIGERT lives deep in the Swedish archipelago, 90 km north of Stockholm, surrounded by forests, the sea, and thousands of islands. In her previous career, Gunilla produced bilingual teaching materials and wrote scripts for Swedish television programs aimed at deaf children.
Since retiring last summer, Gunilla has embarked on a new career as an author. In 2023, she published two books: a children’s book about a boy and a bat and a novel about a deaf girl.
Trilogy - They Wanted My Best
The novel De ville mig väl (roughly translated as They Wanted My Best) is the first in a trilogy. It is based on a true story and was written in close collaboration with Åsa Gustavsson, a deaf woman, to ensure authenticity.
In the novel, readers are introduced to a world that is unfamiliar to many—the deaf community, where sign language is the primary mode of communication. The first book is set in the 1960s and 1970s, a time when sign language was banned in schools for deaf students, and parents were discouraged from using it with their children, as it was falsely believed that signing would hinder their ability to learn spoken language.
The protagonist, Stina, grows up during this period, and the novel follows her as both a child, isolated and unable to communicate and as an adult living within the deaf community. The dilemmas Stina faces are universal, and deaf people around the world will likely see aspects of their own experiences reflected in her story.
Original title: De ville mig väl
Publication: Storify Publishing May 2023
Rights sold: All rights available
Contact: Anna-Maria Ekblad
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