Stroke-afflicted poet wins Nobel Prize for literature
The Swedish Academy gave the award to a Swede for the first time in more than 30 years, saying it chose Tranströmer “because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality”.
“I would like to say that he is one of the most foremost poets in the world today,” said Peter Englund, permanent secretary at the Swedish Academy after the announcement of the prize.
He said the poet had taken the news in his stride.
Tranströmer had a stroke in 1990, limiting his speech and movement down his right side. A keen pianist, he still plays with his left hand.
“It is visionary poetry,” said Neil Astley, founding editor at Tranströmer’s British publishers, Bloodaxe Books. He described the works as being full of “psychological insight and metaphysical interpretation of the world”.
Tranströmer has been nominated for the prize every year since 1993. The prize last went to Sweden in 1974, when it was shared by Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson.
Tranströmer was born in Stockholm on April 15, 1931, to a schoolteacher mother and a journalist father. His 1954 work, 17 poems, was one of the most widely-acclaimed literary debuts of the decade and, after gaining a degree in psychology, he divided his time between writing and work as a psychologist.
As well as being popular in Sweden, his collections have been translated into more than 50 languages.
American poet Robert Hass once said of the Swede’s work: “Tomas’s poetry gave a piercing sense of what it’s like to be an ordinary person going about their life at the moment when that life goes off the tracks.”
The academy said his works had been characterised by economy, concreteness and poignant metaphors. His latest collections, The Sorrow Gondola and The Great Enigma, had shifted towards an even smaller format and a higher degree of concentration, the Academy added.
In his parallel careers as psychologist and poet, he also worked with disabled, convicts and drug addicts while, at the same time, producing a large body of poetic work.
His wife Monica told Swedish news agency TT he was surprised to win the prestigious accolade.
“He did not think he would get to experience this,” she said, adding that a swarm of reporters — who have year after year gathered outside the couple’s apartment building in anticipation of a Nobel announcement — was at their home.
“He also says he is comfortable with all these people who are coming to congratulate him and take pictures,” she said.
