Katarina Frostenson

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.

Katarina Frostenson's work is frequently described as performing a kind of linguistic skepticism (the belief that language is perpetually insufficient to represent reality or contain any essential truth), and as isolating the paradox of using language as the means of its own critique or deconstruction. These limits of language in calling forth reality and experience is also one of the main themes of Katarina Frostenson's work. Her poetry attempts to bring forth experience rather than describe it. In her poetry collections, Frostenson combines shorter poems and longer narrative poems, often with a sense of fragmentation that attempt to convey images or emotions of a specific moment.[3]

Along with a group of other Swedish women poets emerging in the 1980s such as Ann Jäderlund and Birgitta Lillpers, Frostenson's work evinces an attempt to communicate outside of a realm dominated by male writers, focusing on sounds and image rather than a united logos and coherent semantics. Frostenson's poetry stands out in Swedish literary history for its radical linguistic experimentation through a blend of the archaic and the avant-garde; its focus on the intricate sonic qualities of the Swedish language; its references to classical mythology, folksongs, ballads, and canonical Western literary and philosophical figures; and its general lack of metaphor and descriptive language. Her work is orientated towards drawing attention to the material elements of language, that is, sounds, while also being attuned to, playing with, and deconstructing the semantic elements formed out of the phonetic building blocks in search of a purer, authentic or genuine kind of language.

One could say that Frostenson attempts to eliminate all barriers which disrupt emotional and sensory communication. The experience of language's shortcomings is more authentic than its inability to communicate truth.[4] Rather than relying on metaphors and complex attempts at reproducing in language the complexities of human experience, Frostenson's poetry instead gathers fragments of images, emotions, and sounds. Often, each image or feeling appears with an unexpected opposition, creating a dissonance of meaning. For Frostenson, the human senses are more faithful to experience and thus more trustworthy than language as a means of communication.[5]

Frostenson's oeuvre is one of the most influential in Swedish literature. Known first and foremost as a poet, she has published fourteen collections of poetry as well as several works of prose, drama, (creative) nonfiction, translations from French, as well as the libretto for Sven-David Sandström’s opera Staden (The City, 1998). In addition to being nominated for Sweden’s largest literary prize, the August Prize, three times (for Joner in 1991, for Tal och regn [Speech and Rain] in 2008, and for Tre vägar [Three Paths] in 2013), Frostenson has won nearly all the poetry prizes in Sweden and in 2016 was awarded the Nordic Council Literature Prize for her 2015 collection Sånger och formler (Songs and Formulae). She was made a knight of the French Legion of Honor in 2003. Her work has been translated into over ten languages, most notably to French and German (the latter, she has stated, is the language to which her work translates best).

Frostenson and her husband Jean-Claude Arnault ran a venue for showcasing art in Stockholm called Forum. The club received funding from the Swedish Academy, which sparked allegations of conflicts of interest. Thus in 2018, Frostenson was accused of corruption contemporaneous with the accusations of sexual assault and corruption leveled against Arnault. Frostenson was also accused of having leaked names of Nobel Prize laureates to Arnault before they were announced. However, it was discovered that it was commonplace for family members of Academy members to know who was receiving the prize ahead of announcement, according to Ebba Witt-Brattström, ex-wife of Academy member Horace Engdahl.[8] The Academy ultimately decided against expelling Frostenson, which prompted the resignation of three academy members. Frostenson protested that she should not be punished for the wrongdoings of her husband.[9] Nevertheless, she did ultimately and voluntarily withdraw from the academy receiving a lifelong compensation of 12,875 Swedish kronor per month and the right to continue to live in an apartment owned by the Academy.[10]

• 1988 – Gerard Bonniers lyrikpris
• 1989 – De Nios stora pris
• 1994 – Bellman Prize for Tankarna[11]
• 1996 – Sveriges Radios lyrikpris
• 2004 – Erik Lindegren-priset
• 2004 – Ferlinpriset[12]
• 2004 – Henrik Steggen Prize[13]
• 2007 – Ekelöfpriset
• 2007 – Litteris et Artibus[14]
• 2016 – Nordic Council Literature Prize (for Sånger och formler)[15]
• 2016 – Karlfeldtpriset[16]

• Katarina Frostenson profile from Svenska Akademien.
• Poems, Swedish Book Review.

• Alternative Nobel literature prize planned in Sweden