Jan Myrdal is one of the few internationally well-known Swedish authors. His books have been translated into several foreign languages. During the 1960s and 1970s he was a leading left-wing personality, admired by followers and abhorred by enemies. He has remained productive into his seventies, setting his mark on contemporary Swedish literature as an articulate voice of fierce originality.

Since his debut in 1953, his total output--one or two books a year, always surrounded by articles in newspapers and magazines--spans almost all literary genres (except perhaps lyrics) and even renews some of them. This statement applies not least to a new kind of travel writing, based on in-depth research into the history and economy of the particular country. The resulting "report genre" has proved to be an inspiration to other authors of his own generation. In his fictional and dramatic works, conventional patterns have been increasingly vitalized in a...