Sjögren, Lennart

Lennart Sjögren, born in 1930 on northern Öland, where he still lives, has been active as a poet for more than sixty years and today holds a special position in Swedish literature. He made his debut in 1958 with Håll portarna öppna (Keep the Gates Open) and has published ever since, almost thirty more books of poetry, one novel (Fårmannen, 1999) and essays on art, most recently the book of poems I grenverket (In the branches) in 2019.
Over the years, he has received many awards, including the Swedish Radio Poetry Prize, Fröding's Grand Prize, the De Nios Prize, the Karlfeldt Prize and the Aspenström Prize.
Lennart Sjögren is also active as a painter.

Sjöberg, Åke G.

Throughout his life Åke G. Sjöberg has worked with strong commitment and enthusiasm to expand and convey the knowledge about Gotland's history and cultural heritage, both as lecturer and writer.

Born in Klinte on Gotland in 1932, he worked after his studies at Uppsala University (Ph.D. in economic history) as a secondary school teacher in history at Säveskolans gymnasium in Visby. Born and raised on Gotland, he had in many years had a radically important role in this island, as German consul, as chairman of the church council in Visby Cathedral parish and as chairman of the Congregation of Gotland's churches. When Gotland University College started, he has also become an appreciated cicerone for history students.

A large number of scientific and popular scientific publications bears witness of his profund knowledge. Just to mention a few of his research studies: "Gotlandic scooners and skippers in Gotlandic studies in the 1630s and 1640s" (1974), "Fartygslästen. An examination of the cargo as a ship's measure in the ports of Gotland 1630-1660" (1977) and "Haquin Spegel's Rudera Gothlandica and the historians' battle over Gotland" (2014). He also was the editor of "Historia kring Gotland" (1963).

Åke G. Sjöberg was appointed honorary doctor at Uppsala University at the Faculty of History and Philosophy in 2014.

His essay "Den Blomstertid nu kommer" was written specifically for the Baltic Sea Library.

Kleberg, Lars

Lars Kleberg, born in Gothenburg (Göteborg) in 1941, is a Swedish literary critic, writer and translator. He is the son of docent in Latin Tönnes Kleberg and Valgerda Kleberg b. Finsen.

As professor in Russian at Södertörns högskola Stockholm he was one of the founders of the literary translation seminar. He is the chief editor of Svenskt översättarlexikon, Swedish translation dictionary.

Between 1990 and 1994 he was installed as cultural attaché at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow. In 1970-71 he worked as editor of the culture journal Ord&Bild. In 1977 Lars Kleberg presented a thesis at Stockholm University on the subject Teatern som handling: Sovjetisk avantgardeestetik 1917–1927. Lars Kleberg is a translator from Russian and Polish, especially of poetry and drama. He has translated plays by Anton Chekhov and Sławomir Mrożek and poetry by Lev Rubinstein, Adam Zagajewski and Ryszard Krynicki..

In addition to his own books, such as Översättaren som skådespelare: essäer, Stockholm 2001, Tjechov och friheten: en litterär biografi, Stockholm 2010, and Vid avantgardets korsvägar: om Ivan Aksionov och den ryska modernismen, Stockholm 2015, he has been the editor of several anthologies and has worked on various literature-related issues. In 1988, three plays were published in the book Stjärnfall. The plays (Vattumännen, Trollkarlens lärlingar, and Askonsdag) were performed in 1991 by the Swedish radio's Radioteatern and won Nordiska Radioteaterpriset the same year. In 1988, his Trollkarlens lärlingar (Les Apprentis Sorciers) was staged at the Avignon Festival by Antoine Vitez.

His awards include Stiftelsen Natur & Kulturs översättarpris in 1996 and John Landquists pris in 2015.

Melberg, Enel

Enel Melberg, born in Tallinn in 1943, came to Sweden in a refugee boat at an age of one year. She was raised in Gothenburg, studied in Lund and lives nowadays in Oslo and Värmland.

As a writer she published several books, both in Swedish and Norwegian, about exile, "multiculturalism" and multilingualism, using several "languages" and styles. She has also translated 13 books from Estonian into Swedish.

Her Swedish translation of "Sõja laul" was published by Ellerströms in Lund/Stockholm in 2007.

Grundström, Harald

A priest by profession, Harald Grundström was born in Jörns district, Skellefteå, in 1885 and died in Uppsala in 1960. He is today probably best known for his work in Saami linguistics. For more than thirty years, he worked in Jokkmokk (Jåhkåmåhkke), Northern Sweden, where he got to know the Saami culture and language. From the early 1920s and onwards, he published extensively on topics relating to Saami folklore and ethnography, while also documenting the Lule Saami language and place names. Grundström is also known for transcribing, translating and publishing the memoirs of Saami reindeer herder Anta Pirak.

Grundström’s most important contribution to the field of linguistics is his comprehensive dictionary of Lule Saami, based on materials gathered by himself and the two professors Björn Collinder and K. B. Wiklund. Published between the years of 1946 and 1954, the dictionary spans almost two thousand pages and contains information on several Lule Saami dialects, along with translations into Swedish and German as well as abundant example sentences and a morphological overview of the Lule Saami language.
Grundström also did important philological work in publishing a long lost manuscript on Saami beliefs, as well as editing and translating the lyrics in a collection of traditional Saami music. In addition to his scientific work on the Saami language and culture, Grundström also translated hymns and other religious texts to Lule Saami.

In 1944, he was appointed honorary doctor of Uppsala University. A collection of his sermons was published posthumously in 1980.

Lundberg, Ulla-Lena

Ulla-Lena Lundberg is a Finland-Swedish writer, nowadays living in Porvoo, Finland, but writing in Swedish. She was born on the island of Kökar, Åland islands, in 1947. Her parents were church pastor Pehr Lundberg and folk teacher May Olin. She grew up in Espoo and Pargas, took her graduate in 1967. After studying Nordic ethnology and Religious studies, she became FD h.c. at Åbo Academi University in 1993.

In 1962 Lundberg published her first small collection of poetry. Her prose works include the non-fiction book Kökar (1976), the novels Sand (1986) and Leo (1989), the travel book Sibirien (1993) and the novel Ice (2012) for which she was awarded the Finlandia Prize and which has been adapted for the stage by the Finnish National Opera.

Longer stays abroad took her to the USA, Japan, England, Zambia, Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania. She has worked as a freelance for the radio at a young age, was guest writer at the University of Minnesota in 1986-87 and art professor between 1994 and 1999.

Among her literary awards are: Swedish Academy of Finland Prize 1990, Thanks for the Book Medal 1990, Pro Finlandia Medal 1990, Runeberg Prize 1998, Swedish Culture Fund's Grand Prize 1998, Folktingsmedal 1999, Journal Vi's Literature Prize 2002, Tollander Prize 2011, Finlandia Prize 2012.