Background: Johan August Strindberg (; Swedish: [2strInd,baerj] ( listen); 22 January 1849 - 14 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over sixty plays and more than thirty works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics.
Context: Influenced by the history of the Paris Commune, during 1871, young Strindberg embraced the view, that politics is a conflict between the upper and lower classes. He was admired by many as a far-left writer. He was a socialist (or perhaps more of an anarchist, meaning a libertarian socialist, which he himself claimed on at least one occasion). Strindberg's political opinions nevertheless changed considerably within this category over the years, and he was never primarily a political writer. Nor did he often campaign for any one issue, preferring instead to scorn his enemies manifesto-style - the military, the church, the monarchy, the politicians, the stingy publishers, the incompetent reviewers, the narrow-minded, the idiots - and he was not loyal to any party or ideology. Many of his works, however, had at least some politics and sometimes an abundance of it. They often displayed that life and the prevailing system were profoundly unjust and injurious to ordinary citizens.  The changing nature of his political positions shows in his changing stance on the women's rights issue. Early on, Strindberg was sympathetic to women of 19th-century Sweden, calling for women's suffrage as early as 1884. However, during other periods he had strongly misogynistic opinions, calling for lawmakers to reconsider the emancipation of these "half-apes ... mad ... criminal, instinctively evil animals." This is controversial in contemporary assessments of Strindberg, as have his antisemitic descriptions of Jews (and, in particular, Jewish enemies of his in Swedish cultural life) in some works (e.g., Det nya riket), particularly during the early 1880s. Strindberg's antisemitic pronouncements, just like his opinions of women, have been debated, and also seem to have varied considerably. Many of these attitudes, passions and behaviours may have been developed for literary reasons and ended as soon as he had exploited them in books.  In satirizing Swedish society - in particular the upper classes, the cultural and political establishment, and his many personal and professional foes - he could be very confrontational, with scarcely concealed caricatures of political opponents. This could take the form of brutal character disparagement or mockery, and while the presentation was generally skilful, it was not necessarily subtle.  His daughter Karin Strindberg married a Russian Bolshevik of partially Swedish ancestry, Vladimir Smirnov ("Paulsson"). Because of his political views, Strindberg was promoted strongly in socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Question: What else did he do in his political career?
Answer: Many of these attitudes, passions and behaviours may have been developed for literary reasons and ended as soon as he had exploited them in books.

Problem: Background: Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional private detective created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, forensic science, and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard. First appearing in print in 1887 (in A Study in Scarlet), the character's popularity became widespread with the first series of short stories in The Strand Magazine, beginning with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in 1891; additional tales appeared from then until 1927, eventually totalling four novels and 56 short stories. All but one are set in the Victorian or Edwardian eras, between about 1880 and 1914.
Context: Details about Sherlock Holmes's life, except for the adventures in the books, are scarce in Conan Doyle's original stories. Nevertheless, mentions of his early life and extended family paint a loose biographical picture of the detective.  An estimate of Holmes's age in "His Last Bow" places his year of birth at 1854; the story, set in August 1914, describes him as sixty years of age. His parents are not mentioned in the stories, although Holmes mentions that his "ancestors" were "country squires". In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", he claims that his grandmother was sister to the French artist Vernet, without further clarifying whether this was Claude Joseph, Carle, or Horace Vernet. Holmes's brother Mycroft, seven years his senior, is a government official who appears in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", "The Final Problem", and "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" and is mentioned in "The Adventure of the Empty House". Mycroft has a unique civil service position as a kind of human database for all aspects of government policy. He lacks Sherlock's interest in physical investigation, however, preferring to spend his time at the Diogenes Club.  Holmes says that he first developed his methods of deduction as an undergraduate; his earliest cases, which he pursued as an amateur, came from fellow university students. A meeting with a classmate's father led him to adopt detection as a profession, and he spent six years after university as a consultant before financial difficulties led him to accept John H. Watson as a fellow lodger in 1881 (when the first published story, A Study in Scarlet, begins).  The two take lodgings at 221B Baker Street, London, an apartment at the upper (north) end of the street, up seventeen steps.
Question: Did he refer to his brother in his stories?
Answer:
Mycroft has a unique civil service position as a kind of human database for all aspects of government policy.