Birgitta Trotzig

Birgitta Trotzig
Born 11 September 1929(1929-09-11)
Gothenburg, Sweden
Died 14 May 2011(2011-05-14) (aged 81)
Occupation Novelist, essayist, poet
Nationality Swedish

Birgitta Trotzig (September 11, 1929 - May 14, 2011[1]) was a Swedish writer who was elected to the Swedish Academy in 1993.[2] She was one of Sweden's most celebrated authors, and wrote prose fiction and non-fiction, as well as prose poetry.

Contents

Biography

Trotzig was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, as an only child. The family lived with the maternal grandparents in Gothenburg (her grandfather was a psychiatrist, and young Birgitta used to observe his patients), but her parents became teachers in the countryside of Skane. Trotzig returned to Gothenburg and studied art and literary history, and graduated in 1948. She began writing for the national newspaper Aftonbladet and for the literary magazine Bonniers Litterära Magasin.[3] She married artist and sculptor Ulf Trotzig[4] and lived in Paris from 1955 to 1972[5] with her husband; during this period she converted to Roman Catholicism. Through her conversion, she gained access to various aspects of French culture and to Christian and Jewish mysticism; she became very interested in San Juan de la Cruz and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.[3]

In 1997, she won the Övralid Prize. Birgitta Trotzig lived in Uppsala and remained active in public life and with the various projects of the Swedish Academy for much of her later life.[3]

On May 15, 2011, Peter Englund published the news of Trotzig's death in the evening of May 14, after a long illness.[6]

Literary career

Trotzig was one of Sweden's most renowned modern writers,[7] having written several novels in which she gave voice to her Catholic faith (though her perspective is said to have been existential rather than Christian[5]) and her dark visions. Returning themes are the death and resurrection of love. Among her novels are Sjukdomen ("The Illness") (made into the movie Kejsaren, "The Emperor," in 1979) and Dykungens dotter ("The Mud King's daughter") (1985). She also wrote essays and articles on poetry, and works of prose poems: Anima (1982) and Sammanhang ("Contexts") (1996).

Bibliography

Prose fiction

Essay collections

With Ulf Trotzig

References

  1. ^ Peter Englund: Birgitta Trotzig död, Dagens Nyheter May 15, 2011
  2. ^ Arnald, Jan; Trans. Tim Crosfield. "Chair no. 6 - Birgitta Trotzig". The Swedish Academy. http://www.svenskaakademien.se/web/Birgitta_Trotzig_1.aspx. Retrieved 15 February 2010. 
  3. ^ a b c Sondrup, Steven P. (2002). Ann-Charlotte Gavel Adams. ed. Dictionary of Literary Biography. 257: Twentieth-Century Swedish Writers After World War II. The Gale Group. pp. 291–96. 
  4. ^ Sondrup, Steven (September 22, 2000). Birgitta Trotzig and the Language of Religious and Literary Experience.. Scandanivian Studies. 
  5. ^ a b "Birgitta Trotzig". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. 
  6. ^ Förlust, Peter Englund's official blog, May 15, 2011, retrieved May 15, 2011
  7. ^ Forsås-Scott, Helena (1997). Swedish women's writing, 1850-1995. London, United Kingdom: Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 149–169. ISBN 9780485920031. 
Preceded by
Per Olof Sundman		 Swedish Academy,
Seat No 6
1993-2011		 Succeeded by
vacant