Ann Mari Falk was an author, mainly of children’s and youth literature. She also worked as a translator and publisher’s reader.

Ann Mari Falk was born in 1916. She was the daughter of civil-engineer and building contractor Fritz Söderbergh and his second wife, Ingeborg Larsen. She grew up in Stockholm with three siblings, of which the best-known is the author and translator Bengt Söderbergh. By attending the French school and the Anna Sandström school, where subjects including literature and history played an important role, Ann Mari Falk gained good insights into the cultural world during her school years. After training in business management she worked as an insurance officer for Hansa from 1935-1951.

Ann Mari Falk was twice married. Her first marriage was to the journalist Jan Falk from 1939-1945; her second husband was the author Uno Eng, whom she was married to from 1948-1953.

Following her 1944 literary debut, with a short-story collection entitled Fruntimmer, she published further works for adults, including Lätta livets bördor, from 1950, which won a prize from Wahlström och Widstrand. During the 1960s she also wrote a couple of thrillers and later a few novels for the Wahlström publishing house for the so-called elite series.

Ann Mari Falk set out on her career path as a children’s and youth author in the 1950s in tandem with an almost similarly extensive translation career. Her translations mainly involved Danish books, and in this her mother’s Danish origins certainly played a part. These books include Cecil Bødker’s semi classics about Silas. Ann Mari Falk also translated a lot of books from Norwegian, such as those by Tormod Haugen.

Psychological realism played a particularly important role in the children’s books Ann Mari Falk wrote. Her plots in the main are played out on the psychological level. Her youth books are marked by social awareness, which sometimes includes comments on class divisions, as in Min bror Fredrik, from 1976. Adults are usually portrayed as independent people, not just as characters who are supplied to react to the young leading characters in her stories, as is often the case with secondary figures in youth novels.

Although the majority of Ann Mari Falk’s literary output took the form of youth literature she also supplied the texts for a handful of picture books illustrated by Ilon Wikland and a couple that were illustrated by Veronica Leo. Psychological realism was also apparent in her books for younger children, such as the three books about Måns, from 1967-1969, which recount events such as Måns being visited by a cousin or getting a new baby sister.

Her last published book was the 1978 illustrated book Skepp ohoj, with illustrations by Joan Sandin. She also wrote easy-to-read books, such as Anders ute med Taxi, from 1966, and children’s whodunits.

Further to her career as an author Ann Mari Falk also worked as a reader for Rabén & Sjögren publishers, the same publishing house which published most of her youth books.

Ann Mari Falk died in Stockholm in 1988. She lies in the memorial garden at the Norra cemetery in Solna.