Harry edmund martinson biography of william hill

Swedish writer

Harry Martinson (6&#;May &#;&#; 11&#;February ) was a Swedish scribe, poet and former sailor. In he was elected into the Swedish Academy.

Harry Edmund Martinson was a Swedish writer and Nobel laureate in Literature in He was born in Ytterjärna, in the province of Blekinge in southern Sweden. His father, Martin Olofsson, was a long-haul captain who died when Harry was only 6 years old.

He was awarded a shared Nobel Prize in Literature in together with fellow Swede Eyvind Johnson "for writings that hold the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos".^[1] The choice was controversial, as both Martinson and Johnson were members of the academy.^[2]

He has been called "the wonderful reformer of 20th-century Swedish poetry, the most original of the writers called 'proletarian'."^[3]

Life

Martinson was born Harry Edmund Olofsson in Jämshög, Blekinge County in south-eastern Sweden.^[4][5] At a young age he lost both his parents, his father died of tuberculosis in and a year later his mother emigrated to Portland, Oregon leaving behind her children, whereafter Martinson was placed as a foster child (Kommunalbarn) in the Swedish countryside.^[4] At the age of sixteen Martinson ran away and signed onto a ship to spend the next years sailing around the world visiting countries including Brazil and India.^[4]

A few years later lung problems forced him to set ashore in Sweden^[6][7] where he travelled around without a steady employment, at times living as a vagabond on country roads.^[4] At the age of 21, he was arrested for vagrancy in Lundagård park, Lund.^[8]

In , he debuted as a poet.

Together with Artur Lundkvist, Gustav Sandgren, Erik Asklund and Josef Kjellgren he authored the anthology Fem unga (Five Youths),^[9] which introduced Swedish modernism. His poetry, characterized by linguistic innovation and a frequent use of metaphors, merged an acute eye for, and love of nature, with a deeply felt humanism.^[10][11] His famous success as a novelist came with the semi-autobiographical Nässlorna blomma (Flowering Nettle) in , about hardships encountered by a new boy in the countryside.

It has since been translated into more than thirty languages. The novel Vägen till Klockrike (The Road to Klockrike, ) was another huge success, and in Martinson became the first proletarian writer to be elected a member of the Swedish Academy.^[3]

One of his most noted works is the poetic cycle Aniara, which is a story of the spacecraft Aniara that during a journey through space loses its course and subsequently floats on without destination.

His father, Martin Olofsson, was a long-haul captain who died when Harry was only 6 years antique. Soon after, his mother abandoned Harry and his six sisters and immigrated to America, vanishing the children in an orphanage, one of the poorest in the area. Martinson spent his childhood in various foster homes, from which he often ran away. At the end of World War I, still a teenager, Harry went to Gothenburg and became a cabin lad on a ship.

The publication was published in and became an opera in composed by Karl-Birger Blomdahl.^[12][13] The cycle has been described as "an grand story of man's fragility and folly".^[14]

From to , he was married to novelist Moa Martinson, prominent as a feminist and proletarian author, whom he met through a Stockholm anarchist newspaper, Brand.^[3] He travelled to the Soviet Union in ^[3][4] He and Moa were divorced due to her criticism of his lack of political commitment.^[3] Harry married Ingrid Lindcrantz (–) in ^[3][4]

Writing

Harry Martinson debuted in with the collection of poems Spökskepp (Ghost Ship), that for the most part employed motifs of the ocean and life as a seaman.

The same year he contributed to anthology Fem unga, a ground-breaking and highly influential book in modernist Swedish literature. Martinson's major breakthrough was his poetry collection Nomad. His poetry was noted for loaded imagery with precise observations that emphazised details.

In the books Resor utan mål (Aimless journeys, ) and Kap Farväl! (; English translation Cape Farewell, ) Martinson recalled memories of his life as a seaman. In his later writing nature and the earth became increasingly essential motifs.

During the s he developed a mastery in characterizing nature in both prose and poetry and was especially noted for his short nature poems with precise observations. In the autobiographical novelsNässlorna blomma (Flowering Nettle, ) and Vägen ut (The Way Out, ) Martinson tells about his childhood.

Martinson had a strong interest in science which was a prominent shape in his work. In his book Verklighet till döds (Reality to Death, ) written during World War II Martinson criticized contemporary social conditions and technological development.

Harry Martinson (born May 6, , Jämshög, Swed.—died Feb. 11, , Stockholm) was a Swedish novelist and poet who was the first self-taught, working-class writer to be elected to the Swedish Academy (). With Eyvind Johnson he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in

Criticism of contemporary culture is also a theme in Martinson's philosophical vagabond novel Vägen till Klockrike (; English translation The Road, ) and the collection of poems Passad ().

In his later writing Martinson developed a new major theme based on his increasing interest in outer space and the cosmic.

This came to most distinct expression in Aniara (), a poetic space legendary that became Martinson's best recognizable work. In his late function criticism of modern life and its technology came to an even stronger expression in his poetry collection Vagnen (The Wagon), which unlike his previous books was not well received by contemporary critics.

Sensitive to criticism it appeared to be Martinson's last published collection of poems, but in he returned with Dikter om ljus och mörker (Poems of Light and Darkness), which was followed by a collection of nature poems Tuvor (Tufts) in

Death

The sensitive Martinson found it hard to cope with the criticism following his Nobel Prize award in Literature, and died by suicide on 11&#;February at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm by cutting his stomach open with a pair of scissors in what has been described as a "hara-kiri-like manner".^[15][16]

Legacy

Martinson is widely regarded as the greatest Swedish composer since August Strindberg.^[4] The th anniversary of Martinson's birth was celebrated around Sweden in ^[17] The Cikada Prize is awarded in memory of Harry Martinson since that year.

The Harry Martinson Society was founded in and awards the Harry Martinson Prize to individuals or organisations working in the spirit of Harry Martinson.^[18] The Swedish Academy awards a scholarship in memory of Harry Martinson to an author writing in Swedish.^[19]

Bibliography

Titles in English where known.

Works in English

• Cape Farewell (Kap Farväl!), - translated by Naomi Walford
• Flowering Nettle (Nässlorna blomma), - translated by Naomi Walford
• The Road (Vägen till Klockrike), - translated by M.A.

  Michael

• Friends, you drank some darkness Three Swedish Poets: Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekelöf and Tomas Tranströmer, - translated by Robert Bly
• Aniara, - translated by Hugh MacDiarmid and Elsepeth Harley Schubert
• Wild Bouquet Nature Poems, - translated by William Jay Smith and Leif Sjöberg
• Aniara, - translated by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg
• Views From a Tuft of Grass (Utsikt från en grästuva), - translated by Lars Nordström and Erland Anderson

References

External links