About the Author

Tomas Transtromer, recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Stockholm in 1931 and is a psychologist by profession. One of Sweden"s most distinguished poets, he has also received the Bonnier Poetry Prize and the Petrarch Prize in Germany. He lives in Stockholm with his wife, Monica.

Reviews

Transtromer's haunting poems, which frequently explore the boundary between human consciousness and the unknown (``I walk home through the humid woods'' and ``know suddenly that the plants have thoughts''), have long been admired by Robert Bly, among others. This selection of over 100 poems (rendered by 12 translators) bears ample testimony to the Swedish poet's gift for conveying the truths of time and selfhood that lie adjacent to the mundane routines of our technological welfare society. On a pilgrimage through a world that is half contemporary Sweden, half dream landscape, he shows us ``the blue wind flowers'' that ``open a secret passage to the real celebration, which is quiet as death.'' Frank Allen, Assoc. Dean, Continuing Education, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.