Tomas Tranströmer Meets the Press

A happy Tomas Tranströmer met the press at the steps of his apartment building in Stockholm with his wife Monica, Anna Tillgren, PR manager and Eva Bonnier, publisher, both from his publisher Albert Bonniers Förlag. In answer to the questions what they did when the Nobel prizes were announced, Monica Tranströmer’s reply “we sat and read, like other retirees!” was met with laughter.

Publisher Eva Bonnier says that she actually didn’t watch the broadcast of the announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature. “I didn’t dare to hope, so I didn’t watch this year, just sat in front of my computer,” she says.

Jonas Axelsson, editorial director at Albert Bonniers Förlag, says that the prize means a lot for the publication of Tranströmer’s books.

“There isn’t a lot of marketing you need to do, it markets itself,” says Axelsson. “Now we’re focusing on printing new books. There will be 100,000 copies of the anniversary issue of Tranströmer’s collected poems and letters that was published earlier this year in conjunction with his 80th birthday, and 50,000 paperbacks of the collected poems. It’s also good that the poems are available as an e-book of course, Adlibris sold 600 copies in four minutes!”

How did the prizewinner celebrate the rest of the day? “We’ll have fish for dinner, but the rest is a surprise! And Tomas will take part in the giving out of the awards in some way, but we have a lot of time to think of how,” says Monica Tranströmer.