Artur Lundkvist was one of the most prolific twentieth-century Swedish writers. He wrote nearly ninety volumes of poetry, fiction, travel narratives, and essays and literally hundreds of articles and reviews for major Swedish newspapers and periodicals. As an influential member of the Swedish Academy and its Nobel Prize Committee for many years, he played an important role in bringing to the attention not only of Swedish but also international audiences some lesser-known writers of significant merit and interest. He was widely read in a variety of literary traditions but played an especially important role in introducing and championing Spanish-language authors (most notably, perhaps, Pablo Neruda) as well as an array of Anglophone writers--James Joyce, William Faulkner, Henry Miller, Patrick White, and Saul Bellow--through penetrating essays and sympathetic translations. His own literary works are extremely varied in subject, tone, style, and genre and compellingly illustrate the breadth of his...