Lagerkvist, Pär

Lagerkvist, Pär (Fabian)

(born May 23, 1891, Växjö, Swed.—died July 11, 1974, Stockholm) Swedish novelist, poet, and dramatist. He was involved early in life with socialism and soon began to support literary and artistic radicalism. Though his early works are characterized by extreme pessimism, he declared his faith in humanity with his great prose monologue The Triumph over Life (1927). In the 1930s and '40s his writings protested fascism and brutality. The novel The Dwarf (1944) was his first best-seller and his first undisputed critical success. He won world recognition with the novel Barabbas (1950). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951.