AHLIN, LARS

born April 4, 1915, Sundsvall, Swed. influential Swedish novelist of the mid-20th century. The early novel Tbb med manifestet (1943; Tbb with the Manifesto) presents many of the central ideas of Ahlin's writings. In it, a young proletarian finds the Communist ideology unsatisfactory, rejects the notion of social rather than individual value, and reaches a better understanding of himself and the world through a secularized Lutheran theology wherein man is perceived without preconceptions and is judged according to his deeds. The search for grace through love, usually experienced with humiliation and suffering, is traced in a number of subsequent novels, of which Min dd r min (1945; My Death Is My Own), Kanelbiten (1953; The Cinnamon Girl), and Natt i marknadstltet (1957; Night in the Market Tent) are the best known. His most experimental work is Om (1946; If, About, Around). Ahlin published several more books in the 1980s, including an autobiographical novel, Sjtte munnen (1985; The Sixth Mouth). Ahlin received a number of literary distinctions, among them the Prize of the Nine in 1960, the Great Novel Prize in 1962, and the Small Nobel Prize in 1966.