Critics Doyen Nils Schwartz is dead – Expressen

Expressen Kultur prominent critic Nils Schwartz has passed away, 72 years old.

‘s Cultural Karin Olsson remember a man who devoted his life to literature and theater.

Nils Schwartz workplace remains untouched on the editorial board. As if he would come in as usual, read the newspapers, write a text and put headlines. Although he has not been here for almost a year, we have not wanted to clean it. Nisse’s desk to survive himself. That is how it should be.

He became involved in Expressen’s cultural section in 1982 and joined a few years later. His socialist orientation despite he was unswervingly loyal to its liberal employers, and above all the colorful culture editorial as he came to stand very close. For a time, he weighed once a year, his excised reviews. The weight of his high productivity gave him apparently some satisfaction.

But most of all was his life in literature and theater services. Difficult cancer patient mourned his love of reading.

During a visit the last time said he to the reading for him had been a training building, and that “there is no point in adding bricks to a rivningskåk”. After that would energy for a short time to return. Then he plowed back “to fuck”, and it seemed a glow in his eyes, in contrast to the increasingly brittle body.

Nisse managed to be both a Critic critics and the reading public. He had an analytical welding flame, paired with a (sometimes devastating acute) formulation joy and humor. The cynical evil authorities, however, was less with the years. When he got Expressen Björn Nilsson Prize, he said in an interview that he was less interested in cosmesis: “Style is just something that arises when trying to hide a training gap,” he announced with typical precision.

Mario Vargas Llosa , Péter Nádas , Lars Norén and Philip Roth were all examples of writings that touched and partially changed him . When the Academy wrinkled his nose at Roth became the antiauktoritäre Schwartz, the more enthusiastic. As Roth defended himself, he also against all demands for ideological and aesthetic breaks over literature, and by extension the criticism. Brownie wanted to be true to their own experience.

In the middle of life came Nils Schwartz to develop a deep interest in the Jewish experience. Maybe playing the role that he had at the time, was hanged by the anti-Semitic Radio Islam, as one of the Jews who said rule the Expressen’s editorial culture. Now he just happened to have it sometimes Jewish surname Schwartz, but his work as a critic to impart knowledge about Jewish culture, and the testimony is important.

Nisse belonged to an older generation of men, hard drillad by all means keep inferno in there in check. As a writer he was undoubtedly intellectually driven, but identification could also be strong. Brownie was first in the Swedish press to introduce Karl Ove Knaus Farm “My struggle”, the harrowing portrayal of a tyrannical father in the center. Schwartz career as a PhD literary scholars and critics seemed to be an ongoing revolt against his own brutal father who also forced him to become a technical college.

When he had read Sigrid Combüchens “Waste” and Kristina Sandberg May-series, they silenced the women and housewives in modern Sweden’s emergence, he came to the editorial office, dazed and wanted to tell. In these books, he saw his mother.

After retirement at 67 years, he arrived punctually to Express a couple of times a week in his role as “critics emeritus”, to late summer in 2015 that he could not manage complete the review of the Bjorn Elmbrants “Before nightfall,” about 1930s political choices before fascism. The strength ran out, but perhaps also made a sadness over the dark streets of contemporary life itself felt. He was not sorry that he was running away, but formulated a concern for the world as his daughter and three grandchildren would live on in.

Nils Schwartz personified not only criticism position in Expressen’s cultural pages but also humanism.

Nils Schwartz was born in Helsingborg and began his career as a critic in Helsingborgs Dagblad. In 1979 he defended his thesis on Eyvind Johnson’s early writings.

1982 he began writing in the newspaper Expressen, and from 1985 until retirement in 2011, he worked for the feuilleton, where he became a prominent literary and theater critic . With particular finesse was his pen for many years behind the cultural side satire column duck. 2012 was instituted Expressen satire prize duck, Nils Schwartz honor. He was also active as a television critic at the newspaper.
After retirement continued Nils Schwartz as a freelance critic in Expressen, but ended his empowerment because of failing health the summer of 2015.
Schwartz was awarded the 2007 Gerard Bonnier scholarship for cultural journalism, 2010 Aftonbladet Axel Liffner scholarship and 2013. Expressen’s Björn Nilsson prize.
He died on the evening of 13 May and immediately mourned by her daughter Ann and her family.

See Nils Schwartz meeting with Filip and Fredrik in the “Culture Express”.

Read the interview from Nils Schwartz meeting with Lena Andersson.

Read Björn af Kleen interview with Nils Schwartz.

Read Nils Schwartz review Sigrid Combüchens “Spill”.

Read Nils Schwartz review Karl Ove Knaus Farm “My battle 1-3 “.

Read Nils Schwartz’s article about his military service as a radical pacifist.

Read Nils Schwartz’s article about his childhood reading experiences.

Read Nils Schwartz’s article about the introduction of the smoking ban in bars.