Advertisement

Sweden's Enquist wins Austrian literature prize

AFP/The Local
AFP/The Local - [email protected]
Sweden's Enquist wins Austrian literature prize
Sweden's Per Olov Enquist at home in Stockholm

Sweden's Per Olov Enquist, a prolific writer of historical novels and one of the country's most famous authors, was awarded Austria's State Prize for European Literature late on Sunday.

Advertisement

The €25,000 ($32,275, 235,955 kronor) prize was given to him late on Sunday in

Salzburg by Austrian Culture Minister Claudia Schmied, who described the 76-year-old as "a great European storyteller."

"Accuracy and mastership define Enquist's diverse and rich literary oeuvre, which seems to have been written effortlessly and which involves the reader in a unique way in stories that he can tell like no other, somewhere between

fiction, reportage, essay and autobiography," Schmied said.

The author of novels such as "The Visit of the Royal Physician" about Danish

King Christian VII and "The Book about Blanche and Marie," centering around Polish-French Nobel physics laureate Marie Curie, Enquist has also written plays, essays and children's books.

Past winners of the Austrian prize, which has been awarded since 1965, include Spain's Jorge Semprun and Italian writer Umberto Eco, as well as Milan Kundera, Friedrich Duerrenmatt, Simone de Beauvoir and Harold Pinter.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also