Tomas Transtromer Wins 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature

Tomas Transtromer

The latest news from Stockholm is that the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to a Swedish poet, Tomas Transtromer. He is the one whose surrealistic poetry won him accolades as a very important Scandinavian writer since the time of Second World War. His works revolved around the mysteries of the human mind. According to the Swedish Academy, the works of this poet were recognized “because through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.” Transtromer has continued to writer despite his odds. In the year 1990, he suffered from a stroke because of which he was half-paralyzed and was unable to speak. Continuing to write after that, Transtromer got his collection of poems published ‘The Great Enigma’. ‘Windows and Stones’, published in the year 1966, which depicts the themes drawn from his various travels and ‘Baltics’, published in the year 1974 are considered his most famous works. Till now his works have been translated into more than fifty languages across the globe and he has influenced poets far and wide, especially in North America.

 Apart from being a poet, he is also a psychologist, having earned his degree in psychology from Stockholm University. He was born in Stockholm in 1931. His childhood was spent with his mother, who was a teacher. She had divorced his father, who was a journalist. Transtromer started writing poetry when he was in school and brought out his first collection ‘Seventeen Poems’ at the age of twenty-three.