Per Olov Enquist

Enquist presenting himself at the Gothenburg bookfair in 2012.

Per Olov Enquist (23 September 1934 – 25 April 2020), also known as P. O. Enquist, was a Swedish author. He worked as a journalist, playwright and novelist.

Biography Enquist was born and raised in , a village in present-day Skellefteå Municipality, Västerbotten. He was the only son of a single mother, who became a widow when he was half a year old. In his youth, he was a promising athlete with a high jump personal best of 1.97 meters. He studied at Uppsala University, receiving a degree in the history of literature.

During his time in Uppsala he started writing, his first novel Kristallögat being published in 1961, and became a newspaper journalist. Enquist was to write several more novels based on true events. He lived in Denmark from 1978 to 1993 where he was married to Danish journalist Lone Bastholm. Kapten Nemos bibliotek (1991) took inspiration from where two newly born boys were accidentally switched; The Visit of the Royal Physician (1999) was based on the life of Danish King Christian VII and his physician Johann Friedrich Struensee, and Struensee's political machinations and relationship with the King's wife Caroline Matilda in the 1770s; Lewis resa (2001) covered the life of Pentecostal Lewi Pethrus; while Boken om Blanche och Marie (2004) was based on the friendship of Marie Curie and mental patient Marie "Blanche" Wittman. Enquist's first stage play was Tribadernas natt (1975), a story about Swedish author August Strindberg, his soon-to-be ex-wife Siri von Essen, and von Essen's presumed lover .

Awards for his writing have included the Dobloug Prize in 1988, the Selma Lagerlöf Prize in 1997, and the Italian Flaiano Prize in 2002. Besides books and stage plays, Enquist also wrote screenplays for motion pictures, including Pelle Erövraren (1987) and Hamsun (1996), and at the 27th Guldbagge Awards in 1993, Enquist was nominated for the award for Best Screenplay for the film Il Capitano: A Swedish Requiem. He also received the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize as well as the Nelly Sachs Prize in 2003 for The Visit of the Royal Physician. The Visit of the Royal Physician also became the first of two books by Enquist to be awarded the August Prize, the other being his 2008 autobiography Ett annat liv.