Birgitta Defiant

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Birgitta Defiant, 1960

Birgitta Potsig (born September 11, 1929 in Gothenburg ; † May 14, 2011 ) was a Swedish writer and critic and since December 20, 1993 a member of the Swedish Academy .

Life

Birgitta Potsig, née Kjellén, was born in Gothenburg as the daughter of the editor Oscar Kjellén and his wife Astri. After graduating, she married the artist Ulf Potsig in 1949. She studied literature and art history at Gothenburg University . In 1951 she made her debut under the name Birgitta Defensig with the collection of novels Ur de älskandes liv (“From the Lives of Lovers”). Four years later she converted to Catholicism . She worked for the literary magazine Bonniers Litterära Magasin and the newspaper Aftonbladet . Defiant lived in Paris between 1955 and 1972 and was director of Samfundet De Nio from 1967 to 1993. In 1993, she was elected to the Swedish Academy to succeed Per Olof Sundmans .

In her novellas, Defiant examines the fundamental human dilemma from various perspectives: humans as prisoners of their own ego and their own behavioral patterns. The central theme in her books is guilt and liberation, often with a Christian undertone, a balancing act between ethics and aesthetics .

Birgitta Potsig's poems and novels tell of the catastrophes of the twentieth century, but they do it by breaking through the perspective of multiple marginalization. "

- Heinrich Detering

The novel Dykungens dotter (“Moorkönig's Daughter”, German 1990) deserves a special mention, the title and motif of which was adopted by Hans Christian Andersen . The book is about the unwanted child, who is both a figure of light and a mud being, and about his lifelong story of suffering and that of his mother.

Birgitta Potsig has also written collections of poetry.

Works

Original Swedish editions

  • Ur de älskandes liv , 1951
  • Pictures , 1954
  • De utsatta , 1957
  • Ett landskap , 1959
  • En berättelse från kusten , 1961
  • Utkast och förslag , 1962
  • Levande och döda , 1964
  • Sveket , 1966
  • Ordgränser , 1968
  • Teresa , 1969
  • Sjukdomen , 1972
  • I kejsarens tid , 1975
  • Berättelser , 1977
  • Anima , 1982
  • Dykungens dotter , 1985
  • Portrait , 1993
  • Per Olof Sundman , 1993
  • Sammanhang , 1996
  • Valley on Övralid 6 July 1997 , 1998
  • Dubbelheten , 1998
  • Gösta Oswald , 2000

German-language editions

Prizes and awards

literature

  • Heinrich Detering : Legends of the Downfall. On the death of the Swedish author Birgitta Potsig . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 17, 2011.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Författaren Birgitta defense död , article in the Dagens Nyheter from May 15, 2011
  2. Swedish Academy: Chair no.6 - Birgitta Sportwetten ( Memento from October 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. a b "Birgitta Defiant". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010.
  4. Legends of Doom. On the death of the Swedish author Birgitta Potsig . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 17, 2011, page 30