Invalet of Tua Forsström is the best Swedish Academy has done in a long time.
For the first, that she is one of the greatest poets. Secondly, because it is a prerequisite for the Academy to choose up women – and only women. Forsström included, there are today 12 men and 3 women as active members – a balance that would be unthinkable in most other contexts.
the third is invalet excellent for the Finnish Swedish-speaking finally get a representative in the Swedish Academy. To Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Edith södergran’s, Tove Jansson and Kjell Westös språksfär has been invisible in the institution shall reflect the utmost in the Swedish literature has been grotesque. With invalet of Forsström broadens out the Academy from a too narrow kultursyn – the one that ultimately led to the big crash in the spring of 2018. Now there is a lawyer, an author from the Finnish-speaking and a poet with exilbakgrund. A more open academia – and a truer picture of the Swedish public.
in a cross are, however, a number of questions to ask. Has Tua Forsström and several of the other new members courage and authority enough to put down the foot against the abuse of power and the abuses that have been proven to have continued, with stipendieutbetalningar to Horace Engdahls friends and other loyal voices in the public sphere? They can even do it from its position far from the capital? The risk is that the current maktbasen in the Academy to perpetuate their positions and develops itself into a kind of politburo, with representative figureheads of ”distance” in Gothenburg and on the other side of the Baltic sea.
as further doubts, one can conclude that the average age in the Swedish Academy today is more than 71 years – the youngest member is 54 and the oldest 94. This finding is not indicative of any discrimination based on age, but based on the fact that all arbetsgemenskaper works best when there is a spread of ages, with younger and older that enrich each other. And to the Swedish Academy – whether to live on – need to have a foothold also in the younger literary generation.
book review: Tua forsström’s poem lit with gently light
