Lagerkvist, Pär (Vol. 7) - Lagerkvist, Pär 1891–1974
Lagerkvist, Pär 1891–1974
Lagerkvist, a Swedish novelist, poet, and playwright, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951. Lagerkvist championed cubism and expressionism in his youth; in his later years he was absorbed in the religious nature of man's struggle with good and evil. (See also Contemporary Authors, obituary, Vols. 49-52.)
André Gide has said of ["Barabbas" that it was] "beyond all doubt a remarkable book," and there will be few readers to disagree. The work combines the utmost physical realism with an intensity of spiritual conflict not often equaled in the retelling of Biblical tales. Pär Lagerkvist has taken a man barely mentioned in the New Testament and has built him into a character as real, as evil, and as good as he must have been to the men who knew him those centuries ago. This is no outline sketch in black and white but a deeply conceived and richly colored portrait of a man driven beyond the powers of his...
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