Nils Ferlin

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Statue of Nils Ferlin in Stockholm

Nils Johan Einar Ferlin (help·info) (December 11, 1898 - October 21, 1961) was a Swedish poet.

Nils Ferlin was born in Karlstad, Värmland, where his father worked at the Nya Wermlands-Tidningen newspaper. 1908 the family moved to Filipstad and the father started his own paper. Unfortunately the father died one year later and the family was forced to move from their adequate residence to more simple living conditions at the industry district to still manage to stay in school which he graduated from at the age of sixteen.

Ferlin also had a minor career as an actor and debuted at the age of seventeen in Salomé by Oscar Wilde and continued his career with a traveling theatre ensemble.

His poems are almost all sad but yet often humorous. Several of them have been set music to and become popular songs, for example his Valsmelodi - an attack on the music industry. Part of Ferlin's appeal is due to his "dating" - the Central Stockholm before the big urban renewal - and his association with the popular culture which flourished there at that time.

There are several statues of Nils Ferlin: one sitting on a park bench in Filipstad, one in the Karlstad city square depicting him standing on a table, and one near Klara kyrka in Stockholm.