Lars Gyllensten

Lars Gyllensten (born Nov. 12, 1921, Stockholm, Swed.—died May 25, 2006, Solna) was a Swedish intellectual, professor of histology, poet, and prolific philosophical novelist.

Gyllensten was reared and educated in Stockholm. He earned a medical degree (1953) at Karolinska Institute, where he later served as a professor of medicine (1955–73). In 1966 he was elected to the Swedish Academy, an organization that awards various literary honours, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. Two years later he was appointed to the Nobel Committee for Literature, and in 1977 he was made permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. In 1989, however, he chose to become an inactive member of the academy after it failed to protest Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s call for the death of Salman Rushdie, whose Satanic Verses (1988) had been denounced as blasphemous by Muslims. Gyllensten also served as chairman (1987–93) of the Board of the Nobel Foundation.

Gyllensten’s principal theme in his novels is the subjective and relative nature of man’s perception of truth. He reaches the conclusion that absolute skepticism is the necessary basis for experience and knowledge. This theme is developed in Barnabok (1952; “Children’s Book”) against the background of a gradually dissolving marriage. In its sequel, Senilia (1956), the aging process has a similar function in relation to its main character, but this time the inner monologue finds a positive resolution. Sokrates död (1960; “The Death of Socrates”) is a historical novel set in 5th-century-bc Athens. In Lotus i Hades (1966; “Lotus in Hades”) a religious, mystical solution emerges, as in Diarium spirituale (1968; “Spiritual Diary”) and Grottan i öknen (1973; “The Cave in the Desert”). He explores an ideologically bankrupt world in such novels as Moderna myter (1949; “Modern Myths”) and Kains memoarer (1963; The Testament of Cain, 1967).

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Other works by Gyllensten include Det blå skeppet (1950; “The Blue Ship”), Carnivora (1953), Senatorn (1958; “The Senator”), Baklängesminnen (1978; “Memories in Reverse”), and Ljuset ur skuggornas värld (1995; “The Light from the World of Shadows”). He also wrote more than 40 monographs on embryology. His memoir, Minnen, bara minnen (“Memories, Only Memories”), was published in 2000.

Gyllensten received a number of honours. The Swedish Foundation for the Promotion of Literature gave him its annual award in 1972, and three years later he was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.