Kjell Westö

Author

Kjell Westö began his career as a poet but quickly transitioned to prose. He received the State Award for Literature in 1990 for his work Rasch and Other Stories and the Finlandia Prize in 2006 for his novel Where We Once Walked. His novel Mirage 38 won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2014 and also received awards such as the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation's Novel Prize. In 2018, Westö was honored with the prestigious Karl Emil Tollander Award from the Svenska Litteratursällskapet in Finland for his novel The Sulphur-Yellow Sky.

The play adapted from the novel Where We Once Walked was performed on the main stage of the Helsinki City Theatre from 2008 to 2009, attracting over 42,000 spectators. Plays based on Westö's novels Mirage 38, The Sulphur-Yellow Sky, and Tritonus were successfully staged at the Finnish National Theatre from 2017 to 2022. Westö's books have also been adapted into films and TV series.

His works have been translated into over twenty languages, gaining him a wide readership, especially in the Nordic countries. In 2008, Westö was awarded the Pro Finlandia medal, and in 2013, he received the Helsinki City Cultural Award.

Photo: Marica Rosengard / Otava 2017