Stockholm (AFP)
Per Olov Enquist, one of the leading figures in Scandinavian literature of the 20th century, has died at the age of 85, his family announced on Sunday to Swedish media.
Novelist, playwright, journalist, essayist, his writings have been translated into dozens of languages, from "The Crystal Eye" published in 1961 to "Book of Parables" in 2013.
In French, "Le Cinquième Hiver du magnétiseur", "Hess", "Le Départ des musicians", "L'Ange Fallu", "La Bibliothèque du Captain Nemo", "Blanche et Marie" were published in French.
His novel on the folly of King Christian VII of Denmark, "The King's Personal Doctor", earned him the August prize in 1999, the highest Swedish literary award, and in 2001 in France the prize for the best foreign book.
Per Olov Enquist produced a powerful work by plunging into the shadows of History and his own biography.
He who was also in his youth a top athlete was largely inspired by his lonely childhood in the far north of Sweden, in an austere and Bergmanian atmosphere.
His autobiography "Another Life", published in Sweden in 2008, was crowned with a second August prize. A prize created in 1994 in tribute to August Strindberg, the terrible child of Swedish literature to whom "POE", as it was called in Sweden by its initials, said to owe so much.
For Bjorn Wiman, head of the culture section at the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, Enquist "marked Swedish cultural life since the 1960s" and "influenced generations of young writers".
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