Edita Morris

Edith (Edita) Dagmar Emilia Morris, née "Toll" (5 March 1902 - 15 March1988), Swedish-American writer.

Edita Morris was born in Örebro in Sweden. Her parents were Reinhold Toll, an agronomist who had published books on dairy and cattle farming, and Alma Prom-Möller. The Toll family was well-known in Sweden. Her grandfather was a general. She grew up in Stockholm as the youngest of four sisters. When she was still a child her father left the family and emigrated to England. She married in 1925 the journalist and writer Ira Victor Morris (1903-1972), whose father, Ira Nelson Morris, served as the U.S. envoy in the Swedish capital. He gave them a manor house in the small village of Nesles-la-Gilberde, 60 kilometers outside Paris. Ira and Edita had several homes and travelled widely throughout the world. They spent the Second World War years in the United States. They were political activists committed to nuclear disarmament and opposed to many U.S policies of the Cold War. Edita started her literary career with short stories published in the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Bazaar and other publications. In 1943 she published her first novel, "My darling from the Lions". From 1939 until his death in 1943 in New York she shared much of her life with the Swedish painter Nils von Dardel. She figures on many of his paintings from 1930 onwards.

She is mostly known for her novel "The Flowers of Hiroshima" (1959). The novel was partly influenced by the experiences of her son, Ivan Morris, later a distinguished japanologist, as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy visiting Hiroshima immediately after the dropping of the atomic bomb on the city. The book has been translated into 39 languages. In 1978 she published "Straitjacket: autobiography" which was followed in 1983 by a second volume, "Seventy Years' War".

With her husband, who came from a wealthy family background, she founded a resthouse [http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0708_e/exh070810_e.html] in Hiroshima for victims of the bomb. After her death, the [http://www.hiroshimafoundation.net Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture] , usually known as the Hiroshima Foundation, was established. The purpose of the Foundation is to promote peace by supporting efforts in the cultural sphere to favour peace and reconciliation. The Foundation presents awards to women and men who contribute, in a cultural field, to fostering dialogue, understanding and peace in conflict areas.

The following persons have received awards:
2008: K.V. Wimalawardana and K. Kumaraveloo, principals of respectively a Sinhalese and a Tamil school in Sri Lanka, for their joint efforts to foster mutual understanding for Sinhalese and Tamil culture.
2006: Elena Nemirovskaya, founder and Director of the Moscow School of Political Studies, for the development of civic culture, political dialogue, deliberative democracy and respect for human rights in Russia and other post-Soviet countries.
2004: Borka Pavićević, founder of the Centre for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade, for her cultural activities in order to promote tolerance, reconciliation and respect for human rights in the former Yugoslavia; additional awards: Biljana Srbljanović and Jasmina Tesanović, Serbian authors and peace activists.
2001: Donald Kenrick, Valdemar Kalinin, Roberto Ciulli and Rahim Burhan for their work in promoting understanding for the Roma culture and language.
1998: John Kani , playwright and theatre director, for his work with cultural integration in cooperation with people from different ethnic communities, and Antjie Krog, poet and investigating journalist, for her efforts to make the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa understood.
1996: Xavier Albó and Félix Layme Pairumani for their work on the Spanish-Quechua and Spanish-Aymara dictionaries in Bolivia and for translating Bolivian and Peruvian laws, and Carolyn Forché, American poet, for her efforts to combat torture and genocide in El Salvador.
1995: Akihiro Takahashi, atom bomb survivor and former Head of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Director of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation.
1994: Aziz Nesin, Turkish writer, for his resistance to political and religious fundamentalism, and Mohamed Talbi, Tunisian historian , for his efforts to promote dialogue between Muslims and Christians.
1993: Marion Kane and Vivienne Anderson, for their efforts to promote dialogue between Catholic and Protestant women in Northern Ireland.
1992: Sonja Licht for promoting peaceful cooperation between the different communities in former Yugoslavia, and Tanja Petovar, lawyer and human rights activist.
1991: Muhammad Abu-Zaid, Palestinian doctor and founder of the Palestinian Centre for Jewish Studies, for his work on promoting cultural understanding as means for peace, and Galit Hasan-Rokem on behalf of the Israeli Women's Peace Net, for their efforts to promote cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli women.
1990: Kerstin Blomberg, Swedish district nurse and promoter of international understanding among young persons round the Baltic, Jesús Alcalá, Swedish lawyer and human rights activist, Eva Moberg, Swedish writer and journalist, Harald Ofstad, university professor and philosopher, Peter Watkins, British film director and writer.