Author Sara Danius has passed away, says her family for TT. Danius is best known as the Swedish Academy's first female permanent secretary. She took over as permanent secretary in 2015 and left her job at the Swedish Academy in April 2018. She turned 57.

Sara Danius was a professor, literary researcher, author and critic. Her latest book About Bob Dylan came out in 2018, two years after she was instrumental in awarding the musician the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Managed the crisis in the Academy

Danius joined the Swedish Academy 2013 on chair 7 after Knut Ahnlund. In mid-2015, she became the first female permanent secretary to the company since it was founded in the 18th century. When Dagens Nyheter revealed that 18 women accused member Katarina Frostenson's husband Jean-Claude Arnault of sexual harassment and abuse, Danius had to deal with the crisis triggered by the disclosure.

In April 2018, Sara Danius announced that she is leaving her job at the Swedish Academy and she resigned formally in February 2019.

Seven members; Klas Östergren, Kerstin Ekman, Lotta Lotass, Sara Stridsberg, Jayne Svenungsson, Katarina Frostenson and Sara Danius left their chairs as a result of the crisis.

Prominent internationally

Sara Danius was born on April 5, 1962 in Täby outside Stockholm. During her early childhood, she lived in several different places with her mother, author and debater Anna Wahlgren, and her siblings. At the age of eleven, she moved to Täby to live with her father, teacher and author Lars Danius.

In 1998 she published her doctoral dissertation The senses of modernism, which was internationally recognized and was about the relationship between technology, perception and modernist aesthetics.

According to the Swedish Academy website, the book is now a standard reference in modernism research. Danius has also written the book Proust's engine about the writer Marcel Proust.

Sara Danius has been active in Beckman's design college fashion program. Danius came to be associated with garment blouse and when she left her job at the Swedish Academy, hundreds showed their support for Danius by posting pictures in social media where they wore blouse. An estimated 2,000 people gathered outside the stock exchange a few days after Danius announced his departure.