Selma Lagerlöf, the Swedish novelist, was the first woman and first Swede to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1909. Jenny Watson's essay for The Public Domain Review examines the gap between her public image as a gentle storyteller from Värmland and the sophisticated layers in her work. Her breakthrough novel Gösta Berling's Saga was initially criticised as strange and loose, until the critic Georg Brandes praised its lyrical style. Her most famous book, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, was commissioned in 1902 as a geography reader for Swedish schools. Lagerlöf spent three years studying Sweden's landscapes, animals and folk life before weaving them into the story of a boy who flies across the country on a goose. The book became a global success and appears on the Swedish 20-krona note. Her later works also tackled murder, greed, war and religion, including the pacifist novel The Outcast.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.