Chair no. 12 - Per Wästberg
Author
Elected: 1997
Per Wästberg’s writing has a broad span in terms of both period and genre, bringing us everything from essays about hushed libraries to jubilant eulogies.
Per Wästberg was born in Stockholm in 1933. As a student at Östra Real Secondary School, he cultivated his precocious literary interests, and debuted as early as 1949 with the short story collection Pojke med såpbubblor (Boy with Soap Bubbles). He received a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard in 1955 and a Lic. Phil. from Uppsala University in 1962. Wästberg began writing literary criticism for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter in 1953, where he later became editor-in-chief and culture editor from 1976 to 1982.
Wästberg’s writing is both extensive and wide-ranging. Travel has been central to his life, which has led to a fluidity of both geography and genre. He has held a particular interest in the literature and politics of the African continent, and played a key role in the introduction of African literature into Sweden, not least through his groundbreaking 1961 anthology Afrika berättar (Africa Speaks), republished and expanded in 1970. In 1995, he summarised his experiences in the book I Sydafrika. Resan mot friheten (In South Africa: Journey to Freedom). He has also been involved for many years with both Amnesty and PEN, where he was Swedish and later international chair.
In addition to his novels and poetry collections, Wästberg has become a renowned Stockholm chronicler. Selected examples of his work were published in the volume Per Wästbergs Stockholm in 2013. He has also written a number of monographs on figures such as Bo Grandien, Axel Hirsch and Gustaf Adolf Lysholm, as well as biographical novels rich in contemporary colour, including Anders Sparrmans resa (Anders Sparrman’s Journey) from 2008. He has moreover produced a suite of autobiographical books described as memoirs, which were published in five parts between 2006 and 2016.
A genre Wästberg has developed to mastery is that of the eulogy. Several collections have been compiled, including two volumes of Lovtal (Eulogies) from 1996 and 2009 and Hyllningar. Essäer och krönikor (Tributes. Essays and Chronicles) from 2021. He has also cultivated the small-format and literary-fragment genres such as in the miscellany collection Övergångställen (Pedestrian Crossings, 2003), Mellanblad (Interleaves, 2015) and Förlupna ord (Slips of the Tongue, 2020). Läsebok (Reader) from 2019 is a small-format memoir of experiences collected from a life in the service of reading and reflective writing.
Wästberg was a member of the Nobel Committee from 1999 to 2019 and from 2005 to 2019 he was its chair. His 2020 book Utsikt från stol 12 (The View from Chair 12), is a retrospective of the Swedish Academy reflected through the academicians who have occupied the chair he himself assumed in 1997.
Per Wästberg was admitted to the Swedish Academy in 1997, succeeding the author Werner Aspenström on chair number 12.