Sara Stridsberg

Sara Brita Stridsberg is a Swedish author and playwright. Her first novel, Happy Sally, was about Sally Bauer, who in 1939 had become the first Scandinavian woman to swim the English Channel.
Her big international breakthrough came with the publication of the novel The Faculty of Dreams/Valerie in . The novel received the Nordic Council Award in 2007, and was nominated to the Man Booker award when published 2019 in the UK and US. Her novels are today translated into 25 languages.
In 2007, she was awarded the Council Literature Prize for her novel Drömfakulteten, which is her second novel and a fictitious story about Valerie Solanas, who wrote the SCUM Manifesto, which Stridsberg has translated into Swedish. The English translation by Deborah Bragan-Turner was longlisted for the 2019 International Booker Prize. Other acclaimed novels are Beckomberga/The Gravity of Love 2014, Darling River 2010, Antarctica of Love 2018, Farewell to Panic Beach 2024.
She has been awarded many literature prizes, among them the Nordic Council Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, the Dobloug Prize, De Nios Winter Prize and De Nios, the Selma Lagerlöf Prize and has been nominated for the August Prize five times.
Svenska Dagbladet called Stridsberg "one of our foremost nature poets" and considered her among the best in contemporary Swedish literature while noting that Stridsberg's novels are always discomforting to read.
In 2016, Stridsberg was elected to the 13th chair on the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Committee previously occupied by Gunnel Vallquist. She was inducted into the Academy on 20 December 2016. In connection with the Academy's crisis in the wake of #MeToo, she requested to resign, which was granted on May 7, 2018.
Sara Stridsberg is also active as a playwright, with plays such as Medealand, Dissecting a Snowfall, The Art of Falling, Wounded Angel, Beckomberga, American hotel, Valerie Jean Solanas will be president in America, A Grave for Two – Antigone in Kolonos and Vertigo. Her plays have often had their world premieres at The Royal Theatre in Stockholm.

Awards

2013 Dobloug Prize from The Swedish Academy
2010 Visiting professor Free University of Berlin
2015 European Union Prize for Literature for Beckomberga: Ode till min familj
2004 The Sveriges Essäfond Prize
2006 Aftonbladet's Literature Prize
2007 Nordic Council Literature Prize
2010 – The Magazine Vi:s literature award
2015 – Samfundet de Nio´s Grand Prize
2015 – The Aniara Literature Prize
2015 – The Berns Literature Prize
2016 – Selma Lagerlöf Literature Prize
2018 – Moa-priset
2019 – Swedish Radio novel prize
2025 – Pär Lagerkvists Literature Prize

Stridsberg has also been nominated for the August Prize five times: four times in the fiction category with The Faculty of Dreams, Darling River, Medealand, and Beckomberga, and once in the children’s and young adult literature category together with Sara Lundberg for Summer of Diving.”

Translated works in English

Valerie, or The Faculty of Dreams: A Novel The Faculty of Dreams (MacLehose press, 2019)The Antarctica of Love Beckomberga/The Gravity of Love Summer of Diving Hunter in Huskvarna, short stories (MacLehose press 2023)

''We go to the Parc''

Plays

2006 – Valerie Jean Solanas ska bli president i Amerika
2009 – Medealand
2012 – Dissection of Snowfall
2015 – Beckomberga
2015 – The Art of Falling
2016 – American Hotel
2021 – Wounded Angel
2024 – Vertigo
2024 – ''A grave for two - Antigone in Kolonos''