Katarina Frostenson

Alma Katarina Frostenson Arnault (born 5 March 1953) is a Swedish poet and writer. She was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1992 to 2019. In 2003, Frostenson was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in France in recognition of her services to literature.

Frostenson is one of Sweden's foremost poets, whose style unites experimental, traditional and archaic elements with a preoccupation with the materiality of language. She has published over two dozen books, primarily poetry. Debuting in 1978 with I mellan (In-Between), she rose to critical acclaim with her collections in the 1980s and 1990s, including Den andra (The Other, 1982), I det gula (In the Yellow, 1985) and Joner (Ions, 1991), which is often seen as one of the most notable collections of Swedish poetry in the twentieth century. She has also written as a dramatist and as a translator from French. Her book of lyrical prose Berättelser från dom (Stories from Them, 1992), about an ancient people who, through the loss of language, lose their sense of belonging in the world.

Her many honors include the Great Prize of the Society of Nine (1989), the Bellman Prize (1994), the Swedish Radio Prize for Lyrical Poetry (1996), the Erik Lindegren Prize (2004), the Ekelöf Prize (2007), the Nordic Council Literature Prize (2016) and the Litteris et Artibus medal (2007).

Early life

She was born in Stockholm. Her parents were Georg Frostenson (1909–2002) and Anna-Britta Elmdahl (1917–2014). Her uncle Anders Frostenson was married to politician Ulla Lidman-Frostenson (1910–1962), who was Susanna Ramel's elder maternal half-sister.