Victoria Benedictsson was a Swedish author. She wrote under the pen name Ernst Ahlgren. Benedictsson grew up on a farm in Sweden. After an illness left her bed-bound, Benedictsson turned to writing, publishing her first collection of stories, Från Skåne, in 1884. She is regarded as one of the greatest proponents of the Swedish realist writing style. In her novels she described the inequality of marriage and often debated women's rights issues in her writings.