Per Olov Enquist, the Swedish novelist, playwright, poet and screenwriter, died April 27 at age 85. Enquist was winner of the Nordic Council's literary prize and the Swedish Academy's Nordic prize. His historical novel The Visit of the Royal Physician won him the August Prize, Sweden's most prestigious literary award after the Nobel. He won a second August award for his 2008 autobiography A Different Life. His books, including The Crystal Eye (1961), The Parable Book (2013), The Magnetist's Fifth Winter (1964) and The March of the Musicians (1978), have been translated into a dozen languages. He also helped write the screenplay for the film Pelle the Conqueror, which won an Oscar for best foreign language film. "Few have, like him, inspired other writers, renewed the documentary novel, revitalized Swedish drama and touched readers for more than half a century," said Håkan Bravinger, literary director at Enquist's Swedish publisher, Norstedts.
Enquist was cited by fellow Swedish writer Henning Mankell in Mankell's final diary entry before he died. "Eventually, of course, the day comes when we all have to go," wrote Mankell. "Then we need to remember the words of the author Per Olov Enquist: 'One day we shall die. But all the other days we shall be alive.' "