Pär Lagerkvist

Who was Pär Lagerkvist?

Pär Fabian Lagerkvist was a Swedish author who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1951.

Lagerkvist wrote poems, plays, novels, stories, and essays of considerable expressive power and influence from his early 20s to his late 70s. One of his central themes was the fundamental question of good and evil, which he examined through such figures as Barabbas, the man who was freed instead of Jesus, and the Persian King Ahasuerus. As a moralist, he used religious motifs and figures from the Christian tradition without following the doctrines of the church.