[1] Born in Missenträsk, a village in present Skellefteå Municipality, Lidman was raised in the Västerbotten region of northern Sweden.

Her early novels are focused on the difficult conditions facing poor farmers in the northern Swedish province of Västerbotten during the nineteenth century.

Sara Lidman is arguably one of the most important writers of the Swedish language in the twentieth century.

This is especially so because of her innovative method of combining spoken vernaculars with Biblical language in a way closely tied to a certain kind of popular imaginary, while also integrating the worldly and the spiritual.

[citation needed] In connection with her first four novels, she wrote extensively on political subjects, always from a strongly socialist standpoint.