Recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature, Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015) was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and worked as a psychologist for most of his professional life. His debut collection, 17 Poems, appeared in 1954, and he published a relatively small body of work across the following decades. The Swedish Academy cited him for giving readers fresh access to reality through his condensed, translucent images. Robert Bly translated much of his work into English, including the volume The Half-Finished Heaven, introducing him to American readers.
