Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...

Bo Gustaf Bertelsson Carpelan (25 October 1926 – 11 February 2011) was a

Finland-Swedish Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish (; ) is a Variety (linguistics), variety of the Swedish language and a closely related group of Swedish dialects spoken in Finland by the Swedish-speaking population of Finland, Swedish-speaking population, common ...

poet and author. He published his first book of poems in 1946, and received his PhD in 1960. Carpelan, who wrote in Swedish, composed numerous books of verse, as well as several novels and short stories. In 1997, he won the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize, known as the 'little Nobel'. He was the first person to have received the Finlandia Prize twice (in 1993 and 2005). He won the 2006 European Prize for Literature. His poem, ''Winter was Hard'', was set to music by composer Aulis Sallinen. He also wrote the

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

for

Erik Bergman Erik Valdemar Bergman (24 November 1911 – 24 April 2006) was a composer of european classical music, classical music from Finland. Bergman's style ranged widely, from Romanticism in his early works (many of which he later prohibited from bein ...

's only opera, '' Det sjungande trädet''. Carpelan died of cancer on 11 February 2011. He is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki. He was a member of the Finnish noble family Carpelan. Carpelan went to Svenska normallyceum i Helsingfors and then studied history of literature at

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

. He became Doctor of Philosophy in 1960.

Selected bibliography

*'' I de mörka rummen, i de ljusa'' (poetry collection, 1976) *''Urwind'' (novel, 1993) *''Berg'' (novel, 2005)

References

External links

1998 Interview with Bo CarpelanBo Carpelan in 375 humanists 28.03.2015, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki
1926 births 2011 deaths Writers from Helsinki Finnish writers in Swedish Finlandia Prize winners 20th-century Finnish nobility Finnish literary critics Nordic Council Literature Prize winners 20th-century Finnish poets Burials at Hietaniemi Cemetery Opera librettists Swedish-speaking Finns 21st-century Finnish nobility {{finland-poet-stub