SOURCE: Swanson, Roy Arthur. Introduction to Pär Lagerkvist: Five Early Works, translated by Roy Arthur Swanson, pp. 1-61. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Swanson traces Lagerkvist's literary development and delineates the defining characteristics of his work.

I

Pär Fabian Lagerkvist was born on May 23, 1891, in Växjö, a southern Swedish town in the Kronoberg district of Småland province; his early writings are cast in the orthography and dialect of this region. His maternal grandparents were farm folk, severely uncompromising in their fundamentalist religion. In their presence Lagerkvist learned the cold terror of a religion of judgment. His attitude to this kind of religion is expressed in works like The Morning (Morgonen), and Guest of Reality (Gäst hos verkligheten, 1925: a recollection of his childhood).

His father, Anders Johan Lagerkvist, was a bangrdsförman (foreman at a railroad station yard). Details...