Harry Martinson (May 6, 1904 – February 11, 1978) was a Swedish sailor, author and poet. In 1949 he was elected into the Swedish Academy. He was awarded a joint Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974 together with fellow Swede Eyvind Johnson. The choice was very controversial, as both Martinson and Johnson were members of the academy and had partaken in endorsing themselves as laureates.
He has been called "the great reformer of 20th century Swedish poetry, the most original of the writers called 'proletarian'."[1]

Life
Martinson was born in Jämshög, Blekinge County in south-eastern Sweden.
- At a young age he lost both his parents whereafter he was placed as a foster child (Kommunalbarn) in the Swedish countryside.
- At the age of sixteen Martinson ran away and signed onto a ship to spend the next years sailing around the world visiting countries such as Brazil and India.
- A few years later lung problems forced him to set ashore in Sweden where he travelled around without a steady employment, at times living as a vagabond on country roads.
- In the city of Malmö, at the age of 21, he was arrested for vagrancy.
In 1929, he debuted as a poet. Together with Artur Lundkvist, Gustav Sandgren, Erik Asklund and Josef Kjellgren he authored the anthology Fem unga (Five Youths)[2], which introduced Swedish Modernism. His poetry combined an acute eye for, and love of nature, with a deeply-felt humanism. His popular success as a novelist came with the semi-autobiographical Nässlorna blomma (Flowering Nettles) in 1935, about hardships encountered by a young boy in the countryside. It has since been translated into more than thirty languages.
Controversy
The joint selection of Eyvind Johnson and Martinson for the Nobel Prize in 1974 was very controversial as both were on the Nobel panel. Graham Greene, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov were the favoured candidates that year.
The sensitive Martinson found it hard to cope with the criticism in the 1970s following his award, and attempted suicide with a pair of scissors