Horace Engdahl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Horace Engdahl (born December 30, 1948) is a Swedish literary historian and critic. He has been the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy since 1999.

Engdahl was born in Karlskrona, Blekinge. He earned his B.A. in 1970 at Stockholm University, and began his doctoral studies there; he completed his Ph.D. only in 1987, with a study on Swedish romanticism, but had meanwhile been active as a literary critic, translator and journal editor, and was one of the introducers of the continental tradition of literary scholarship in Sweden. He is currently adjunct professor of Scandinavian literature at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. He speaks Swedish, English, German, French and Russian fluently.

In 1997, Engdahl became a member of the Swedish Academy, elected to the seat vacated by the death of Johannes Edfelt; in 1999, he succeeded Sture Allén as the Academy's permanent secretary, i.e. its executive member and spokesperson. As such, he has the annual task of announcing the recipient of the Nobel prize in literature to the press.

He is married to Ebba Witt-Brattström, professor of literature at the Södertörn University College outside Stockholm. Together they have three sons.

[edit] External links

• Presentation at the official website of the Swedish Academy

Preceded by Johannes Edfeldt

Swedish Academy, Seat No.17 1997-

Succeeded by incumbent

	Members of the Swedish Academy
	1. Sten Rudholm • 2. Bo Ralph • 3. Sture Allén • 4. Lars Forssell • 5. Göran Malmqvist • 6. Birgitta Trotzig • 7. Knut Ahnlund • 8. Jesper Svenbro • 9. Torgny Lindgren • 10. Peter Englund • 11. Ulf Linde • 12. Per Wästberg • 13. Gunnel Vallquist • 14. Kristina Lugn • 15. Kerstin Ekman • 16. Kjell Espmark • 17. Horace Engdahl • 18. Katarina Frostenson