Memories Look at Me: A Memoir

Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015) was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and became the most celebrated Scandinavian poet of the twentieth century. Working as a psychologist for most of his professional life, he published sparingly — fewer than ten thin collections — but with exceptional concentration and impact. His poetry employs vivid imagery to meditate on the threshold between sleeping and waking, the interior life and the external world, silence and language. His collections include 17 Poems (1954) and The Half-Finished Heaven. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011, cited for giving readers fresh access to reality. Robert Bly's translations of his work introduced him to a wide American readership.