Harry Martinson

Harry Martinson (6May 190411February 1978) was a Swedish writer, poet and former sailor. In 1949 he was elected into the Swedish Academy. He was awarded a joint Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974 together with fellow Swede Eyvind Johnson "for writings that catch the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos". The choice was controversial, as both Martinson and Johnson were members of the academy.

He has been called "the great reformer of 20th-century Swedish poetry, the most original of the writers called 'proletarian'." One of his most noted works is the poetic cycle ''Aniara'', which is a story of the spacecraft ''Aniara'' that during a journey through space loses its course and subsequently floats on without destination. The book was published in 1956 and became an opera in 1959 composed by Karl-Birger Blomdahl. The cycle has been described as "an epic story of man's fragility and folly". Provided by Wikipedia