Sigge Stark was the pseudonym used by Signe Björnberg, who was the daughter of a bankrupt landowner. She married a trotting trainer in Värmland and became the first female trotting trainer in Sweden.
Her debut novel Den steniga vägen til lyckan was published in 1924, and she dreamed throughout her life of writing a ‘proper’ book, but, outrageously underpaid, was forced to produce one hundred and fifty popular novels in her struggle against mounting credit and tax debt.
As the titles of her books – such as Manhatarklubben, 1933 – suggest, her novels are about women who cease to be independent and critical of male society when they meet their knight in shining armour. Sigge Stark wrote just two books under her own name about animals: Kamrat Hund, 1953, and Mina vänner djuren, published posthumously in 1965.