An award-winning biography of one of the first undercover journalists—a pioneering Swedish woman who lived a fascinating life of adventure and forbidden love and who changed journalism forever.
Born in 1891 in Stockholm, Ester Blenda Nordström defied stereotypes from an early age. She wore trousers, smoked a pipe, and rode motorbikes, much to the chagrin of her esteemed family. As a young woman, she captivated the public as Sweden’s first investigative journalist.
Ester’s real passion was uncovering the truth, which she did by inhabiting the lives of others. Under an assumed identity, she toiled as a Swedish milkmaid on a farm, lived for six months with the Indigenous Scandinavian Sami people, and journeyed to America alongside poor emigrants aspiring to a better life. She saved villages from starvation during the Finnish Civil War and joined an expedition to study volcanoes in Siberia. Her groundbreaking reports were received by a spellbou
