Three authors compete for the 2026 Eyvind Johnson Prize

The Municipality of Boden established the literary prize in 1988 to honour the memory of author and Nobel laureate Eyvind Johnson. He was born in 1900 in Björkelund, outside Boden, became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1957 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974, jointly with Harry Martinson.

The Eyvind Johnson Prize is awarded every two years and recognises the most artistically significant authorship or individual work published during the preceding two years.

For the 2026 prize, the jury has considered works published in 2024 and 2025. The nominees are Magnus Dahlström, Sara Stridsberg and Lina Wolff. The winner will be announced on Thursday, 29 October.

Magnus Dahlström – Vinter

The jury’s statement:

In the novel Vinter, readers follow protagonists from three generations into an increasingly cold and forbidding future. What does it mean to be human when the conditions of human existence change? Our senses prove unreliable, while rational thought is overtaken by intuition. Dahlström explores uncertainty and focuses on meticulously portraying the inner moments of people at the boundaries of civilisation.

Sara Stridsberg – Farväl till Panic Beach

The jury’s statement:

With sparkling prose that manages to be both dreamily hazy and razor-sharp, Sara Stridsberg weaves a family chronicle in Farväl till Panic Beach that winds its way through time and space. Grief, guilt, longing, inheritance – and transformative love: all find a place in this richly layered novel. Stridsberg allows her first-person narrator, Nina, to do what she herself does best: write her way forward in a language attuned to the movements of the planets and the pulse that runs through us all.

Lina Wolff – Liken vi begravde

The jury’s statement:

Lina Wolff’s Liken vi begravde is a novel that, in the form of a tall tale, takes the reader straight into the acute state that family life can be. The narrator, Jolly, recounts in a laconic and unpretentious manner her childhood with her sister Peggy and their foster parents. Wolff’s gaze does not shy away from the cruellest thoughts, actions and circumstances, nor from the fundamental humanity that exists alongside them. The result is an evocative and consistently entertaining coming-of-age novel, charged with painfully perceptive images of our time.

Jury for the 2026 Eyvind Johnson Prize

• Thella Johnson, author and journalist
• Björn Kohlström, critic
• Alexandra Sundqvist, author and critic
• Per Anders Wiktorsson, researcher in literary studies at Stockholm University

Chair: Fredrik Rönnberg, Director of Culture, Municipality of Boden