born May 6, 1904, Jämshög, Swed.
died Feb. 11, 1978, Stockholm
Swedish novelist and poet.
He spent his childhood in foster homes and his young adulthood as a merchant seaman, labourer, and vagrant. He described his early experiences in two autobiographical novels, Flowering Nettle (1935) and The Way Out (1936), and in travel sketches. Among his best-known works are the poetry collection Trade Wind (1945), the novel The Road (1948), and the epic poem Aniara (1956). In 1949 he became the first self-taught working-class writer ever elected to the Swedish Academy. He shared the 1974 Nobel Prize for Literature with Eyvind Johnson .