Obituary: Tomas Transtromer

Shelf Awareness

Tomas Transtromer, the Swedish poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2011, died last Thursday. He was 83.

His work was "known for shrewd metaphors couched in deceptively spare language, crystalline descriptions of natural beauty and explorations of the mysteries of identity and creativity," the New York Times wrote. "With a pared-down style and brusque, forthright diction, Mr. Transtromer wrote in accessible language, though often in the service of ideas that were diaphanous and not easy to parse; he could be precisely observant one moment and veer toward surrealism."

And at The Guardian.