Frans Gunnar Bengtsson

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Frans Gunnar Bengtsson (October 4, 1894 - December 19, 1954) was a Swedish novelist, essayist, poet and biographer. He was born in Tossjö, near Ängelholm, in Scania and died at Ribbingsfors Manor in northern Västergötland.

He is best known for his Viking saga novel Röde Orm (titled The Long Ships in English). His essays are mainly about historical subjects. A selection from them was translated into English in 1950 and published as A Walk to an Ant Hill and other essays.

In addition, among his nearly 100 essays, he wrote 1 about race, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the theories of Gobineau. For example, in Silversköldarna ("The Silver Shields", 1931) Bengtsson praises Gobineau as a genius and states that "while the noble blood dries up or is diluted, the feudal structure of society decays, which has maintained a youthful vitality in every limb: the state organism shrivels (...) the hydra of mediocrity and democracy cheerily crawls out of its den".

Men of action interested him, men like Francois Villon, Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon and king Charles XII of Sweden, and also the famous generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson from the civil war in America 1861-65. He once said: "Joan of Arc, Charles XII, and Garibaldi are the persons I would like to meet - for them the truth was more important than intrigues."

He married Gerda Fineman in 1939. Bengtsson studied at the University of Lund from 1912, receiving his Licentiate in Philosophy in 1930.