Lars Norén


Lars Göran Ingemar Norén was a Swedish playwright, novelist and poet. He was a director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, artistic director of Riksteatern 1999–2007, and artistic director of Folkteatern in Gothenburg 2009–2012. Norén is commonly acknowledged as the foremost Swedish playwright since August Strindberg, and the great contemporary Nordic playwright alongside Jon Fosse. His dramatic work has been performed widely throughout Europe as well as in China and South America.
Norén's work spans across genres and styles, and explores existential and social themes. The dramatic works are driven by a poetic dialogue, with elements of absurdity and humour. Recurring motifs are the Holocaust, nightly quarrels in bourgeois families, alcoholism, and the socially marginalised.
The prefix Norén- is used figuratively in Swedish compound words, such as Norénjul. It refers to common themes in Lars Norén’s work, and evokes a sense of anxiety, a bleak domestic atmosphere, bitter conflict, excessive alcohol consumption, guilt, and shame. A 'Norén Christmas' is the antithesis of the idyllic 'Bergman Christmas' depicted in ''Fanny and Alexander.''

Career

Lars Norén's body of work is prodigious. He wrote and published well over 120 plays, seventeen volumes of poetry and fifteen volumes of prose including a five-volume diary made up of 6,300 pages. His dramatic work is written for the stage, television, and the radio.

Poetry

Norén made his debut in 1963 with the collection of poems Syrener, snö. The 1960s poetry has elements of expressionism, surrealism and concretism and has frequently been described as 'schizoid', as it overflows with nightmarish visions. This period is followed by the nomadic and bright lyricism of Kung mej och andra dikter and the so called diary poetry of Dagliga och nattliga dikter, Dagbok and Nattarbete. The form is increasingly compressed and ascetic, culminating in the hermetic poetry of Order, Den ofullbordade stjärnan and Hjärta i hjärta, the latter looking forward to the drama form by introducing a strong address and an element of theatricality. Hjärta i hjärta marked Norén's farewell to poetry. It would be thirty-six years before he returned, with Stoft.
While Artur Lundkvist, Federico García Lorca, Raymond Roussel and Henri Michaux are intertextually important to the 1960s poetry, Gunnar Ekelöf, Paul Celan, Rainer Maria Rilke and Friedrich Hölderlin are key figures in the poetry of the 1970s. Order is largely written in dialogue with Paul Celan.
Norén was among the contributors of Puss satirical magazine in late 1960s.

Theatre

As early as the 1970s, Norén had begun exploring theatrical expression in TV plays such as Amala, Kamala and radio plays like Box Ett. His first stage play was Fursteslickaren, staged at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1973 amid scandal and controversy. He returned to the stage with Orestes and Modet att döda,.
The semi-autobiographical plays Natten är dagens mor and Kaos är granne med Gud, which premiered in 1982 and 1983 respectively and were broadcast as highly acclaimed television productions in 1984, marked the real beginning of Norén’s fame as a playwright. With the series known as Borgerliga kvartetter Norén reached a wider audience.
Among the roughly one hundred plays Norén wrote, particular mention can be made of De döda pjäserna, a cycle of fourteen plays including En sorts Hades, and the trilogy Morire di Classe, which began with Personkrets 3:1, giving voice to the socially marginalised on the streets of Stockholm. Under the collective title Terminaler, Norén wrote a long suite of shorter plays with existential themes, as well as several plays of a more social or political nature, such as Anna Politkovskaya In Memoriam, Kyla, and Krig. Many of these works have been staged both in Sweden and internationally. Eugene O'Neill, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett are often referenced in Norén's dramatic works.
Also notable is the controversial 7:3, written and performed in collaboration with a group of inmates, two of whom were active neo-Nazis and were allowed to express their views on stage as part of the performance. Further criticism was aimed at Norén and Riksteatern for their possible role in a chain of events that led to the Malexander murders. Two of the perpetrators had been granted temporary leave from their incarceration at Österåker Prison to participate in Norén's play. Journalist Elisabeth Åsbrink has chronicled the events in Smärtpunkten, which was later adapted into the television series Smärtpunkten on SVT, with David Dencik portraying Norén. The years following the controversy are documented in first volume of Norén's diary, En dramatikers dagbok ''.''
During the 2000s, Norén undertook numerous directing assignments, staging both his own and other writers’ works, in Sweden and across Europe. From 1999 to 2007, he served as artistic director of Riks Drama at Riksteatern, and from July 2009 to November 2011, he was the artistic director of Folkteatern in Gothenburg.

Diary

Norén is also known for En dramatikers dagbok, a monumental work of over 6,000 pages chronicling two decades of his life. The diary was published in five volumes between 2008 and 2022, the last of which appeared posthumously — ending mid-sentence. En dramatikers dagbok was selected as the best Swedish novel of the 2000s in a 2025 survey of 101 authors, critics and scholars, published by ''Expressen.''

Private life

Lars Norén was married for the first time from 1970 to 1975 to Elisabet Mörk who worked as a script supervisor on various film productions from the 1960s. They had a daughter in 1971. In a relationship with Ann-Charlotte Bonner, who also worked in film and television, he had a daughter in 1978. From 1993 to 2003, Norén was married to dramaturge and theatre scholar Charlott Neuhauser. From 2007 to 2013, he was married to actress Annika Hallin, with whom he had a daughter in 2009.
Lars Norén died on 26 January 2021, aged 76, following complications from COVID-19 during the pandemic in Sweden.

Awards

Norén was awarded the prestigious De Nios Stora Pris in 1980. In 2003, he received the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize, often referred to as the 'little Nobel'.
  • 1967 – Albert Bonniers stipendiefond för yngre och nyare författare
  • 1969 – Carl Emil Englund-priset för Stupor
  • 1971 – Aftonbladets litteraturpris
  • 1974 – Zornpriset
  • 1975 – TCO:s kulturpris
  • 1978 – Gerard Bonniers lyrikpris
  • 1980 – De Nios Stora Pris
  • 1982 – Aniarapriset
  • 1985 – Kellgrenpriset
  • 1992 – Expressens teaterpris
  • 1994 – Pilotpriset
  • 2003 – Svenska Akademiens nordiska pris
  • 2008 – Litteris et Artibus
  • 2012 – Sveriges Radios Lyrikpris
  • 2012 – Bellmanpriset
  • 2015 – Per Ganneviks stipendium
  • 2015 – Stockholms stads hederspris
  • 2016 – Ferlinpriset
  • 2017 – Selma Lagerlöfs litteraturpris
  • 2017 – Litteraturpriset till Pär Lagerkvists minne

    Works

Poetry

  • Syrener, snö
  • De verbala resterna av en bildprakt som förgår
  • Inledning nr: 2 till SCHIZZ
  • Encyklopedi
  • Stupor. Nobody knows you when you're down and out
  • Revolver
  • Solitära dikter
  • Viltspeglar
  • Kung Mej och andra dikter
  • Dagliga och nattliga dikter
  • Dagbok: Augusti–Oktober
  • Nattarbete
  • Hans Bellmer
  • Order
  • Murlod
  • Den ofullbordade stjärnan
  • Hjärta i hjärta
  • Stoft
  • ''Avgrunden av ljus''

    Prose

  • Salome, Sfinxerna. Roman om en tatuerad flicka
  • Biskötarna
  • I den underjordiska himlen. Biskötarna II
  • En dramatikers dagbok 2000 – 2005
  • Filosofins natt
  • En dramatikers dagbok 2005 – 2012
  • Ingen
  • Fragment
  • En dramatikers dagbok 2013 – 2015
  • Efterlämnat
  • Fragment Il
  • En dramatikers dagbok 2015 – 2019
  • En dramatikers dagbok 2019 – 2020
  • Prosa 2020
  • ''En liten roman''

    Plays (Published)

  • Tre skådespel
  • En fruktansvärd lycka
  • Två skådespel
  • Endagsvarelser
  • Och ge oss skuggorna
  • Tre borgerliga kvartetter
  • De döda pjäserna I-IV
  • Radiopjäser 1971–1995
  • Personkrets 3:1
  • Skuggpojkarna
  • Stilla vatten
  • Dramer – Terminal & Samhälle
  • "De sista rummen", Grannar
  • Olycka, illustrated by Agnes Jakobsson
  • ''Tre pjäser – Natten är dagens mor, Kaos är granne med Gud och Stillheten''

    Television

  • Belgrove Hotel, Goodbye
  • En hungersaga
  • Amala Kamala
  • Modet att döda
  • München Athen
  • Natten är dagens mor
  • Kaos är granne med Gud
  • Hebriana
  • Komedianterna
  • Bobby Fischer bor i Pasadena
  • Sanning och konsekvens
  • Och ge oss skuggorna
  • Som löven i Vallombrosa
  • Ett sorts Hades
  • Personkrets 3:1
  • Detaljer
  • ''Kyla''

    Radio Plays

  • Box ett
  • Röster
  • Depressionen
  • Dräneringen
  • Akt utan nåd
  • När de brände fjärilar på lilla scen
  • Hämndaria
  • Trio till världens ände
  • ''Skuggor''