SWEDEN: Poet Tomas Transtromer wins Nobel
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REPORTING FROM LONDON -- Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer has won the 2011 Nobel Prize in literature.
Tranströmer, 80, is known for often mystical verse detailing the natural world and the human mind. Although he is best known in Sweden, his work has been translated into more than 60 languages.
The prize committee said that ‘through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.’
Journalists and others gathered for the announcement in Tranströmer’s native Stockholm burst into cheers when his name was read out by the Swedish Academy.
Tranströmer has won numerous other awards for his work. Besides being a poet, he is also a trained psychologist who has worked with prisoners and drug addicts.
‘He is writing about big questions,’ said Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the academy. ‘It’s about death, history and memory, watching us, creating us, and that makes us important because human beings are a sort of prism where all these great entities meet. ... You can never feel small after reading the poetry of Tomas Tranströmer.’
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