Contemporary Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer is the 2011 Nobel
Prize-winner for Literature
On April 15, 1931, Tomas Tranströmer was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
He attended the University of Stockholm, where he studied psychology and
poetry.
One of Sweden's most important poets, Tranströmer has sold thousands
of volumes in his native country, and his work has been translated into
more than fifty languages. His books of poetry in English include The Sorrow Gondola (Green Integer, 2010); New Collected Poems, edited by Robin Fulton (Bloodaxe Books, 1998, 2011); The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems, edited by Robin Fulton (New Directions, 2003); The Half-Finished Heaven, translated by Robert Bly (Graywolf, 2001); For the Living and the Dead (1995); Selected Poems, edited by Robert Hass (Ecco, 1987) Baltics (1974); Paths (1973); Windows and Stones (1972), an International Poetry Forum Selection and a runner-up for the National Book Award for translation; The Half-Finished Sky (1962); and Seventeen Poems (1954).
His work has gradually shifted from the traditional and ambitious
nature poetry written in his early twenties toward a darker, personal,
and more open verse. His work barrels into the void, striving to
understand and grapple with the unknowable, searching for transcendence.
"I am the place / where creation is working itself out," he declares
in his poem "The Outpost," about which he wrote "This kind of religious
idea recurs here and there in my poems of late, that I see a kind of
meaning in being present, in using reality, in experiencing it, in
making something of it."
Tranströmer is the recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Literature.
His other honors and awards include the Aftonbladets Literary Prize, the
Bonnier Award for Poetry, the Neustadt International Prize for
Literature, the Oevralids Prize, the Petrach Prize in Germany, and the
Swedish Award from International Poetry Forum. ~Poets.org
Contemporary Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer is the 2011 Nobel
Prize-winner for Literature
