Friday, October 07, 2011

Nobel prize for literature goes to Swedish Poet Tomas Tranströmer

Swedish poet acclaimed for 'condensed translucent images' which give us 'fresh access to reality'
Tomas Tranströmer
Bookies' favourite Tomas Tranströmer. Photograph: Sophie Bassouls/Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Corbis
Secretary of the Swedish Academy Peter Englund explains why Tranströmer was chosen Link to this audioThe Swedish Academy has responded to accusations of insularity over recent years by awarding the 2011 Nobel prize for literature to one of their own: the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer.
Tranströmer becomes the eighth European to win the world's premier literary award in the last 10 years, following the German novelist Herta Muller in 2009, the French writer JMG le Clezio in 2008 and the British novelist Doris Lessing in 2007.
Sweden's most famous poet becomes the 104th literature laureate, joining former winners including Mario Vargas Llosa and Orhan Pamuk, and is the first poet to take the laurels since Wislawa Szymborska in 1996. Praised by the judges for "his condensed translucent images" which give us "fresh access to reality", Tranströmer's surreal explorations of the inner world and its relation to the jagged landscape of his native country have been translated into over 50 languages.
Full report at The Guardian.

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