The Second Light

San Francisco: North Point Press, 1986 Vilhelm Ekelund was perhaps Sweden's most enigmatic writer. His influence on Scandinavian literature is great; so great, in fact, that many writers of his home country have been impelled to struggle against it. Born in southern Sweden in 1880, Ekelund was fervently active as a writer until his death in 1949. By the beginning of the twentieth century he was, according to a critic, "twenty-three years old and Sweden's foremost poet." Soon, however, he denounced his poetry as sentimental and superficial. He never published another poem. This collection brings together a selection of Ekelund's preferred form of writing, aphoristic prose, from over twenty volumes of essays and meditations. Working within the discipline of aesthetics, his interests varied from life and art to writers and writing. His tools were his own thoughts; his object of research his own mind, which he scrutinized with a merciless honesty. This inner journey explains Ekelund's development from an acerbic, skeptical follower of Nietzsche to a detached observer of humble quietism. Ekelund described his works as a voyage. ---------- Orders of $100.00 or more are shipped using tracked courier delivery services. Size: 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall