author
Emil Sommarin
1874–1955
A Swedish economist and memoirist, he combined scholarly work with a lively interest in politics, student life, and social change. His writing offers a thoughtful glimpse into Sweden’s intellectual world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Malmö on January 13, 1874, he studied at Lund University and first worked in languages before turning to economics. He later became a professor of economics and public finance at Lund, where he was known as a successor to Knut Wicksell and as a scholar of agriculture, banking, and economic history.
He was also active in radical student circles in his younger years and was connected with the Social Democratic movement. That mix of academic seriousness and political curiosity shaped both his research and his more personal writing.
For readers today, he is especially interesting because he did not write only as a specialist. In works such as Studenter och arbetare, he looked back on student life, labor politics, and the people around him, leaving behind books that are valuable both as history and as memoir. He died on May 20, 1955.