During her time in Uppsala and until 1930, Boye was a member of the Swedish Clarté League, a socialist group that was strongly antifascist.

[3] In 1931, Boye, together with Erik Mesterton and Josef Riwkin, founded the poetry magazine Spektrum, introducing T. S. Eliot and the Surrealists to Swedish readers.

In the novel, an idealistic scientist named Leo Kall invents Kallocain, a kind of truth serum.

[2] During the stay in Berlin in 1932–1933 she met Margot Hanel (7 April 1912 – 30 May 1941), whom she lived with for the rest of her life, and referred to as "her wife".

[6] As Boye had resigned as editor of Spektrum she earned her living from translations and writing short stories for weekly magazines.

[1] She was found (according to the police report at the Regional Archives in Gothenburg) on 27 April, curled up at a boulder on a hill with a view just north of Alingsås, near Bolltorpsvägen, by a farmer who was going for a walk.

Here, she is depicted not as a heroic Amazon but as an ordinary human, small and grey in death, released from battles and pain.

[8] Karin Boye has been the subject of several biographies, numerous literary studies and articles, and her work have continuously been published in new Swedish editions.