Elisabeth Åsbrink

Elisabeth Åsbrink is a writer and  journalist and President of Swedish PEN, based in Stockholm and Copenhagen.
She has been nominated for the August Prize three times and did win it for best non-fiction book 2011 for And in Wienerwald the trees are still standing. For the same book she was awarded the prestigious Ryszard Kapuściński Award for Literary Reportage in 2013, with the following motivation:

”Through an intimate story about a Jewish boy trying to escape extermination and looking for shelter in Sweden, Elisabeth Åsbrink tells a universal story. Story of people who, while convinced of their own virtue and responsibility, may contribute to a crime. By bringing back Europe’s very recent and very ignominious past, the author awakens readers’ sensitivity to a drama taking place before our very eyes; the drama of refugees in contemporary world.”

1947 is her third book and it was published simultaneously in Sweden, Denmark and Norway in the autumn of 2016 with many more countries following in 2017 and 2018. The rave reviews speaks of a “powerful and enormously moving new book”, “a gripping history” and that “Elisabeth Åsbrink writes sentences that make one gasp in admiration.”
 

AWARDS

2010 Jarl Alfredius minnesstipendium
2013 The August Prize for best Non fiction
2013 Dansk-svensk Kulturfonds kulturpris
2013 Ryszard Kapuściński Award for Literary Reportage
2016 Letterstedtska författarpriset
2017 Freedom Pen Prize (Torgny Segerstedt Foundation)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Web: www.elisabethasbrink.se 
Facebook: Elisabeth Åsbrink