Gunnel Vallquist
Gunnel Vallquist (born June 19, 1918 in Stockholm ; † January 11, 2016 ) was a Swedish author and critic and has been a member of the Swedish Academy since 1982 . As a Catholic, Vallquist mainly wrote essays on religious topics. One of her most important achievements is the Swedish translation of Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time , published between 1965 and 1982.
Life
Gunnel Vallquist was born in Stockholm in 1918 as the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Gunnar Vallquist and his wife Lily (née Söderberg). She studied Romance languages , literary history and Nordic languages at Uppsala University and graduated with an exam in 1946. She then moved to France , where she came into contact with Sven Stolpe . By this time she had converted to Catholicism and had already written for Catholic magazines as a student. From France she continued this and wrote essays and on cultural topics for Bonnier's Litterära Magasin , Dagens Nyheter and, since 1952, for Svenska Dagbladet , among others . Her magnum opus , the translation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time , began in 1950. As a cultural author, she made sure that parts of French literature were made known to the Swedish public. In the 1950s she lived in Rome for a few years, where she began, among other things, a biography of Giorgio La Pira , a Catholic Christian Democratic politician from Florence .
Vallquist's first book Något att leva för (1956) was a collection of essays. Her other books were also characterized by journalistic forms of representation , which, however, increasingly took on fiction . In her Dagbok från Rom (4 volumes, 1964–1966, published in German translation under the title “The Second Vatican Council”) she reported on the Second Vatican Council . Central church political and current theological issues also shape her other literary work.
In 1976 Vallquist received an honorary doctorate in theology from Lund University . In 1981 she was awarded the title of honorary professor by the Swedish government.
She has been a member of the Swedish Academy since 1982 (for life) and, in succession to Anders Österling (chair no. 13), one of 18 jury members for the Nobel Prize for Literature .
Works
- Något att leva för, 1956
- Giorgio La Pira: borgmästare och profet, 1957
- Ett bländande mörker, 1958
- Till dess dagen gryr: anteckningar 1950–1958, 1959
- Vägar till Gud, 1960
- Den oförstådda kärleken, 1961
- Helgonens svar, 1963
- Dagbok från Rome, 1964-66 (4 delar)
- Kyrkor i uppbrott, 1968
- Följeslagare: [essayer], 1975
- Morgon och afton, 1976
- Sökare och siare: essayer, 1982
- Steg på vägen, 1983
- Helena Nyblom, 1987
- Katolska läroår: Uppsala-Paris-Rome, 1995
- Vad väntar vi egentligen på ?: Texter om kristen enhet 1968–2002, 2002
- Texter i urval, 2008
Awards and honors
Web links
- Literature by and about Gunnel Vallquist in the catalog of the German National Library
- Swedish Academy website about Gunnel Vallquist (Swedish)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Akademiledamoten Gunnel Vallquist död
- ↑ Member of the jury for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Writer Gunnel Vallquist dies at the age of 97 , n-tv.de/dpa, January 11, 2016.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vallquist, Gunnel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish author and literary scholar |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 19, 1918 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stockholm |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 11, 2016 |