Gunnel Vallquist

Gunnel Vallquist (19 June 1918 – 11 January 2016) was a Swedish writer and translator. She was elected a member of the Swedish Academy. Vallquist wrote several essays on Catholic religion in contemporary times, and translated the seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust into Swedish.

Life Born in Stockholm in 1918, Vallquist's father was Lieutenant Colonel Gunnar Vallquist and her mother was translator Lily Vallquist. She was educated at an all-girls’ school in Skövde Gunnel, but finished school and graduated in Stockholm. The family had moved after Gunnar Vallquist's death. Vallquist was married for a short time to an officer. After her marriage, in 1939, she converted to Catholicism, at the Sankta Ingridshem chapel of the French Dominican sisters. She died in Bromma in 2016.