Lars Norén emerged in the late 1960s as a writer whose poetic reports from a psychotic netherworld of the human condition seemed to repel as many readers as they fascinated. He gradually established himself as one of Sweden's most prominent poets, a position formally acknowledged by his reception of the Gerhard Bonnier Critic's Prize in 1978 for Order (Order, 1978). No sooner had he gained this recognition, however, than he left poetry and turned his creative energy to drama. During the years that followed, Norén renewed naturalist drama in a way that has ensured him a distinctive position in the history of Swedish, perhaps even European, literature. Twenty years after his first book of poetry, the obscure poet Norén had somehow transformed himself into the most influential Swedish dramatist since August Strindberg.

Norén was born in Stockholm on 9 May 1944 as the younger...