"It is with great sadness that we announce that the author and illustrator Gunilla Bergström has passed away," writes Bok-Makaren AB, which manages Gunilla Bergström's work, in a press release.
The author died at home on Wednesday after a long period of deteriorating health.
Gunilla Bergström grew up in Gothenburg where she studied to be a journalist.
She worked for a few years at Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter before her debut as an author with the book Mia's dad moves in 1971.
The first Alfonsboken came the following year.
Good night, Alfons Åberg became the first of a total of 26 books in the beloved series about Alfons and his father.
International success
The Alfons books have been printed in about five and a half million copies in Sweden and just over four million copies abroad.
The books have been translated into more than 30 different languages.
- I do not understand how big he is, and I do not care to understand it either.
Like many others, I have low self-esteem.
It is when I draw and write that I feel at home and safe and calm, she said in an interview in Babel 2017.
Gunilla Bergström saw herself primarily as an illustrator and drew the pictures for her more than 40 books.
She has also dramatized several of her stories and written children's songs, including with the jazz musician and composer Georg Riedel.
Sat in the children's book academy
In 2019, she received the royal medal Litteris et Artibus for outstanding artistic contributions as a writer.
She has previously been awarded the Swedish Government's gold medal Illis quorum meruere labores 2012 and the Royal Society Pro Patria's gold medal in the 12th size 2018.
She sat on chair 12 in the Swedish children's book academy between 1997-2013.