This is how Academy member Kristina Lugn remembers: “She was a genius at the operation and a fanatic.”



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– When we are at the peak of our capacity, how do we move away from it?

The quote comes from Kristina Lugn, according to historian and author Peter Englund. In an instagram post he remember his former colleague at the Swedish academy:

“Dear Kristina, no other member could make me so happy, so excited, so confused, so inspired, so far, so bewildered, so lively, so warm in my heart.”

Academy member and author Per Wästberg describes Kristina Lugn as one of her closest friends, as someone she will always miss.

– We exchange emails literally every day for several years. When I didn’t hear from her now in a few days, I became very concerned and contacted her daughter, who went upstairs and found her dead, Per Wästberg tells TT.

“A star is extinct”

Author and literary researcher Horace Engdahl describes her as one of the Academy’s closest companions.

– It really is as if a star is extinct. He gave the Academy a special salt that is irreplaceable. No one can be Kristina Lugn, says Engdahl.

Former member Sara Stridsberg describes her former bankmate at the academy as a genius.

“She is a little childish, but now she feels as if she thought that a poet, playwright and person like Kristina Lugn was immortal, that she would always exist, that her figure was as eternal as her poem. At the Swedish Academy, she was my partner in Bench and it was a bit like coming home to meet her, she glanced at the person and the literature that was both sharp and forgiving and completely untamed.

Her poems often resonate with me, thanks to her I know that a man must acquire a heart that can withstand both love and disaster and that life is a work of sadness. I don’t like the word genius, but maybe Kristina is the only genius I’ve come across, ”she writes to SVT News.

Praise the efforts of literature.

Per Wästberg and Kristina Lugn used to eat buns and drink tea regularly. He tells TT that he will remember his joy, dark humor, words, and his great contribution to literature.

– He was a genius in the operation and a fan. Such a tremor without plan in language and reality. I will remember that I asked him every Thursday at the meeting what had happened, why disaster had happened. She had been robbed on a bridge in the old town, she lost her key and was trapped in an elevator. She was so distracted and forgot things. But she still managed somehow. She was like an inconsolable girl who moved and put together a reality that became her property, says Per Wästberg.

Horace Engdahl also highlights his work as a poet and playwright.

– She has meant a lot, not least, to the theater and to making it possible to portray women in other ways. She will have a safe place in Swedish literature, she says.



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