GYLLENSTEN, LARS (JOHAN WICTOR)

born Nov. 12, 1921, Stockholm Swedish intellectual, professor of histology, poet, and prolific philosophical novelist. Gyllensten was reared and educated in Stockholm and was a professor of medicine at the Karolinska Institute for 18 years. He served on the Nobel Committee for Literature from 1968 and was made permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy in 1977. The Swedish Foundation for the Promotion of Literature gave him its annual award in 1972. Gyllensten's principal theme in his novels is the subjective and relative nature of man's perception of truth. He reaches the conclusion that absolute skepticism is the necessary basis for experience and knowledge. This theme is developed in Barnabok (1952; Children's Book) against the background of a gradually dissolving marriage. In its sequel, Senilia (1956), the aging process has a similar function in relation to its main character, but this time the inner monologue finds a positive resolution. Sokrates' dd (1960; The Death of Socrates) is a historical novel set in 5th-century-bc Athens. In Lotus i Hades (1966; Lotus in Hades) a religious, mystical solution emerges, as in Diarium spirituale (1968) and Grottan i knen (1973; The Cave in the Desert). He explores an ideologically bankrupt world in such novels as Moderna myter (1949; Modern Myths) and Kains memoarer (1963; The Testament of Cain, 1967). Other works by Gyllensten include Det bl skeppet (1950; The Blue Ship), Carnivora (1953), Senatorn (1958; The Senator), Baklngesminnen (1978; Memories Backward), and more than 40 monographs on embryology.