The Swedish author and journalist Agneta Pleijel was born in Stockholm. She grew up in Stockholm, Lund and Princeton, USA. Her father was the professor of mathematics Åke Pleijel, her mother the author, translator and music teacher Sonja Berg Pleijel. Because the family often moved homes, Agneta Pleijel constantly had to change schools, and she has described her schooldays as a difficult period of her life. After leaving school she studied ethnography, philosophy and literature in Gothenburg, where she obtained a licentiate.