Swedish poet recognized
Staff , The Columbus Dispatch
STOCKHOLM - The 2011 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded yesterday to Tomas Transtromer of Sweden, whose surrealistic works about the mysteries of the human mind won him wide recognition as the mos…
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The Columbus Dispatch
STOCKHOLM — The 2011 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded yesterday to Tomas Transtromer of Sweden, whose surrealistic works about the mysteries of the human mind won him wide recognition as the most influential Scandinavian poet of recent decades.

Characterized by powerful imagery, Transtromer’s poems are often built around his own experiences and infused with his love of music and nature. His later poems are darker, probing life, death and disease.

“Waking up is a parachute jump from dreams. Free of the suffocating turbulence, the traveler sinks toward the green zone of morning,” reads the prelude to The Great Enigma, his final collection. “Things flare up. From the viewpoint of the quivering lark he is aware of the huge root systems of the trees, their swaying underground lamps. But aboveground there’s greenery — a tropical flood of it — with lifted arms, listening to the beat of an invisible pump.”

A psychologist and avid amateur pianist, Transtromer suffered a stroke in 1990 that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak, but he continued to write, publishing The Great Enigma in 2004.

He has since retired from writing.

The 80-year-old has been a perennial favorite for the $1.5 million award.

“He’s writing about big questions,” said Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize. “He’s writing about death; he’s writing about history and memory and nature.”

Transtromer is the first Swede to receive the literature prize since 1974, when Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson shared it.

Englund has said that the academy is cautious about giving the award to Swedish writers out of fear of being seen as biased.

“I think we’ve been quite thoughtful and haven’t been rash,” Englund said after the award was announced.