SOURCE: "The Later Poems of Gunnar Ekelöf: Diwan and Fatumeh," in Mosaic, Vol. IV, No. 2, Winter, 1970, pp. 101-15.

In the following excerpt, Sjöberg explores Ekelöfs blending of Eastern mysticism with the Christian figure of the Virgin Mary in two of his later poems.

In his prose works, the Swedish writer Gunnar Ekelöf (1907-1968) often returned to memories and dreams, some-what as Proust did. What triggered Ekelöf's memory might be a fragrance, a tone, or a certain light. He described childhood experiences, his observations from travels in the Mediterranean area or in Lapland, his fascination with people, books, and pictures. Certain of these themes appear quite frequently in his poems. In the essay "En outsiders väg" ("An Outsider's Way," 1947) he gives part of his lyrical autobiography. When he calls himself an autodidact, he does not mean it in the proletarian sense. "My childhood...