Elisabeth Rynell

Elisabeth Rynell (born 17 May 1954) is a Swedish poet and novelist. Her novel Till Mervas (2002), the first to be translated into English, appeared in 2011 as Mervas. Born in Stockholm, Rynell was the daughter of an English teacher and a nurse. After completing her schooling, she spent a year in England as an au pair. She has also visited Iran and Afghanistan on an overland trip to Pakistan and India. After spending much of her life in the far north of Sweden, she now lives in Stockholm and Hälsingland.After her husband died when he was only 22, Rynell embarked on her writing career, publishing seven collections of poetry and four novels, both highly esteemed in Sweden. Her first collection of poems Nattliga samtal (Nocturnal Conversations) appeared in 1990 but it was her novel Hohaj (1997) which brought her into the limelight and earned her two literary prizes. Her most recent work, Skrivandets sinne (Sense of Writing, 2013) is a collection of autobiographical essays evoking her writings about the city and the countryside as well as accounts of her closest friends, including the author Sara Lidman.