SOURCE: "East Meets West—Gunnar Ekelöf in English," in Moderna språk, Vol. LXVI, No. 2, 1972, pp. 124-30.

In the following excerpt, Otter offers a mixed review of Selected Poems as translated by W.H. Auden and Leif Sjöberg, arguing that while some of the translation decisions made in the volume are imprecise and misleading and indicate "a certain lack of feeling for Ekelöfs mysticism and his style, " it is useful to have an English translation of Ekelöf's later poems which has the potential to "reach a very wide public. "

One of Gunnar Ekelöf's earliest attempts at revolt against society and Christianity took the form of muttering to himself during school prayers "Om mani padme hum". This youthful protest, blended with mysticism, is evidence already of his interest in the East, which he later fed to the full at the Royal Library in Stockholm...