Harry Martinson – Facts
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1974 was divided equally between Eyvind Johnson "for a narrative art, far-seeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom" and Harry Martinson "for writings that catch the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos"
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Life

Harry Martinson was born in Blekinge, Sweden, into a family of seven children. After his father, a merchant, died of tuberculosis, his mother immigrated to the US leaving her seven children with foster families in the countryside. Martinson had an unstable childhood and ran away from home and school several times. As a 16-year-old he became a sailor, but later left the sea to become an author after contracting tuberculosis in 1927. He was first married to author Moa Martinson, and later to Ingrid Martinson, with whom he had two children.

Work

Harry Martinson's works include poetry and prose, characterized by expressive and original language. Themes include his experiences during a harsh and unloving childhood and during his youth spent as a seaman and vagrant with no fixed home or steady job. His philosophical reflections and descriptions of the natural world reflect both his affection and concern for nature and his interest in science. Martinson's most famous work, the Aniara poetry collection from 1956, is about a space ship that leaves Earth after a devastating nuclear war, but then goes off course.