Swedish literature refers to literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden.[1]
zOMG!
I'm listening to some sweet Swedish songs right now. See previous post if you're not!
Even though Sweden has a literary history that dates back to the Viking Age, it was not until 1541 that Swedish literature began to flourish; the translation of the Bible finally gave Sweden a uniform language. Around that time, the king wanted to censor many texts and often Catholic books were burned. The king also shut down the University, forcing Swedes to travel abroad for higher education.
By the 18th century, Swedish writers felt more comfortable writing secular literature.
Notable Swedish writers:
Selma Lagerlöf (Nobel laureate 1909)Pär Lagerkvist (Nobel laureate 1951)
Henning Mankell (detective novelist)
Jan Guillou (spy-fiction writer)
Astrid Lindgren (author of Pippi Longstocking)
Hjalmar Gullberg (leading Modernist poet)
Gunnar Ekelöf (leading surrealist poet)
Tomas Tranströmer
Posts
My favorite Swedish poet/the only Swedish poet I know is called Aase Berg.
ReplyDeleteHere are some of her poems:
http://www.conduit.org/online/aase/aase.html
http://www.webdelsol.com/Double_Room/issue_four/Aase_Berg4.html
http://www.typomag.com/issue07/berg.html
I found another little ditty on the lovely Ann Jaderlund:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.typomag.com/issue07/jaderlund.html