Stig Dagerman

Stig Halvard Dagerman was born on October 5, 1923, in Älvkarleby, Uppsala County. Raised by his grandparents on a farm, he joined the syndicalist youth movement in Stockholm at age sixteen, editing the anarchist newspaper Arbetaren.

Between 1945 and 1949, Dagerman produced an astonishing explosion of literary masterpieces: four novels (Ormen, De dömdas ö, Bränt barn, Bröllopsbesvär), four plays, and dozens of short stories. In the autumn of 1946, Expressen sent him to report on ruined post-war Germany; his articles, published as Tysk höst (German Autumn), offered a compassionate, unflinching portrait of civilian suffering in the bombed ruins. Plagued by perfectionism and severe depression, he ended his life at age thirty-one.