author
Sigfrid Siwertz
1882–1970
A major voice in 20th-century Swedish literature, he wrote novels, poems, plays, and short stories with a sharp eye for society and human character. He is especially remembered for the adventurous early novel Mälarpirater and for the family saga Selambs.
2 Audiobooks
Downstream
by Sigfrid Siwertz
Modern Swedish Masterpieces: Short Stories
by Per Hallström, Verner von Heidenstam, Sigfrid Siwertz, Hjalmar Söderberg
About the author
Born in Stockholm on January 24, 1882, he became one of Sweden’s most prolific literary figures. He studied at Uppsala University and also spent time in Paris, experiences that helped shape a career that ranged across poetry, drama, short fiction, and novels.
His breakthrough came with Mälarpirater (1911), a lively coming-of-age adventure that remained widely loved, while Selambs (1920), known in English as Downstream, established his reputation as a novelist of social observation. Critics have noted that his work often explored morality, ambition, and the pressures of modern bourgeois life.
He was elected to the Swedish Academy in 1932 and remained a prominent presence in Swedish letters for decades. Siwertz died in Stockholm on November 26, 1970.