Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer won the Nobel Prize in Literature today “because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality,” the Nobel committee said. Tranströmer, 80, is a Stockholm native whose first poetry collection was published in 1954. He worked as a psychologist in the sixties and for the Labour Market Institute in the eighties before a stroke in 1990 left him unable to speak. The Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, and physiology or medicine were also announced today (congrats to Dan Schectman; Saul Permutter, Brian P. Schmidt, and Adam G. Riess; Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann, and Ralph M. Steinman, respectively), but the committee won’t announce this year’s Peace Prize winner until tomorrow, and those anxious economists will have to wait until Monday to find out who among them has earned ultimate bragging rights. You can read some of Tranströmer’s poems here if you are feeling fancy. [Nobel Prize]
