Tomas Tranströmer


Tomas Gösta Tranströmer was a Swedish poet, psychologist and translator. His poems captured the long winters in Sweden, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature. Tranströmer's work is also characterized by a sense of mystery and wonder underlying the routine of everyday life, a quality which often gives his poems a religious dimension. He has been described as a Christian poet.
Tranströmer is acclaimed as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since the Second World War. Critics praised his poetry for its accessibility, even in translation. His poetry has been translated into over 60 languages. He received many awards for his poetry, including the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Life and work

Early life

Tranströmer was born in Stockholm in 1931 and raised by his mother Helmy, a schoolteacher, following her divorce from his father, Gösta Tranströmer, an editor. He received his secondary education at the Södra Latin Gymnasium in Stockholm, where he began writing poetry. In addition to selected journal publications, his first collection of poems, 17 Poems, was published in 1954. He continued his education at Stockholm University, graduating as a psychologist in 1956 with additional studies in history, religion and literature. Between 1960 and 1966, Tranströmer split his time between working as a psychologist at the and writing poetry. He worked as a psychologist at the Labor Market Institute in Västerås from 1965 to 1990.

Poetry

Tranströmer is considered to be one of the "most influential Scandinavian poet of recent decades". Tranströmer published 15 collected works over his extensive career, which have been translated into over 60 languages. An English translation by Robin Fulton of his entire body of work, New Collected Poems, was published in the UK in 1987 and expanded in 1997. Following the publication of The Great Enigma, Fulton's edition was further expanded into The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems, published in the US in 2006 and as an updated edition of New Collected Poems in the UK in 2011. He published a short autobiography, Minnena ser mig '''', in 1993.
By the mid-1960s, Tranströmer became close friends with poet Robert Bly. The two corresponded frequently, and Bly translated Tranströmer's poems into English. In 2001 Bonniers, Tranströmer's publisher, released Air Mail, a work consisting of Tranströmer's and Bly's day-to-day correspondence on personal, contemporary and literary matters c. 1965–1991 – in a style that vividly conveyed how close friends the two had soon become. Bly also helped arrange readings for his fellow poet in America. The Syrian poet Adunis helped spread Tranströmer's fame in the Arab world, accompanying him on reading tours.
In the 1970s, other poets accused Tranströmer of being detached from his own age, since he did not deal overtly with social and political issues in his poems and novels. His work, though, lies within and further develops the Modernist and Expressionist/Surrealist language of 20th-century poetry; his clear, seemingly simple pictures from everyday life and nature, in particular, reveals a mystic insight to the universal aspects of the human mind.
Tranströmer went to Bhopal immediately after the gas tragedy in 1984, and alongside Indian poets such as K. Satchidanandan, took part in a poetry reading session outside the plant. Late in his life, he tried his hand at some Swedish haiku.
One of his poems was read at the assassinated politician Anna Lindh's memorial service in 2003. Tranströmer suffered a stroke in 1990 that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak; however, he continued to write and publish poetry through the early 2000s.

Music

Tranströmer played the piano throughout his life; after his stroke, he taught himself to play with his left hand. He often said that the playing was a way for him to continue living after the stroke.
Tranströmer's daughter Emma is a concert mezzo-soprano. In 2011 she released the album Dagsmeja, containing settings of 18 of Tranströmer's poems.
Many composers and musicians have worked with his poems. Among these are Jan Garbarek, Ulf Grahn, Madeleine Isaksson, Margareta Hallin, Lars Edlund, Sven-David Sandström, Jan Sandström and Anders Eliasson.

Death

Tranströmer died in Stockholm on 26 March 2015 aged 83.

Works

;Books of poetry
;Other
  • Memories Look at Me, Bonnier, 1993, prose memoir
  • Air Mail: Brev 1964-1990, Bonnier, 2001, correspondence with Robert Bly
  • Galleriet: Reflected in Vecka nr. II, an artist book by Modhir Ahmed

    Translations of his work

;into English
  • Twenty Poems tr. Robert Bly, Seventies Press, 1970
  • Night Vision: Mörkerseende tr. Robert Bly, London Magazine Editions, 1972, SBN 900626 74 7
  • Windows and Stones tr. May Swenson & Leif Sjoberg, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972;
  • Selected Poems, Tomas Tranströmer, tr. Robin Fulton,, Penguin Modern European Poets, 1974;
  • Baltics: Östersjöar, tr. Samuel Charters, Oyez, Berkeley, 1975 ; new edition Tavern Books 2012,
  • Baltics: Östersjöar, tr. Robin Fulton, Oasis Books, London, 1980;
  • Selected Poems, translator Robin Fulton, Ardis Publishers, 1981,
  • The Blue House: Prose Poems, Thunder City Press, 1983
  • The Wild Market Square: Det vilda torget tr. John F. Deane, Dedalus Press, Dublin, 1985;
  • Collected Poems, Translator Robin Fulton, Bloodaxe Books, 1987,
  • Tomas Tranströmer: Selected Poems, 1954–1986, Editor Robert Hass, Publisher Ecco Press, 1987
  • Sorrow Gondola: Sorgegondolen, tr. Robin Fulton, Dufour Editions, 1994, ; Dufour Editions, Incorporated, 1997,
  • For the Living and the Dead: För levande och döda, tr. John F. Deane; The Dedalus Press, Dublin, 1994;
  • New Collected Poems tr. Robin Fulton, Bloodaxe Books, 1997,
  • Selected Poems Transtromer, Translator May Swenson, Eric Sellin, HarperCollins, 1999,
  • The Half-Finished Heaven tr. Robert Bly, Graywolf Press, 2001,
  • The Deleted World tr. Robin Robertson, Enitharmon Press, 2006, ; Enitharmon Press, 2006,
  • ; republished 2011
  • The Sorrow Gondola tr. Michael McGriff and Mikaela Grassl, Green Integer, 2010,
  • The Deleted World tr. Robin Robertson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux USA, Enitharmon Press UK, 2011;
  • New Collected Poems tr. Robin Fulton, expanded edition Bloodaxe Books, 2011,
  • Inspired Notes, tr. John F. Deane, Dedalus Press, Dublin, 2011 ;
  • Bright Scythe: Selected Poems by Tomas Tranströmer, tr. Patty Crane, Bilingual edition, Sarabande Books, 2015;
  • The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer, tr. Patty Crane, Bilingual edition, Copper Canyon Press, 2023;
;into other languages
He won the International Poetry Forum's Swedish Award.