Bodil Malmsten
Bodil Malmsten (born 19 August 1944 in Bjärme, Jämtland) was a Swedish poet and novelist. She was born close to Östersund in Jämtland, Sweden and grew up at her grandparents.
The English translation of her novel, Priset på vatten i Finistère (The Price of Water in Finistère, translated by Frank Perry), was selected as a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. In the novel, having decided to pack up and leave her country of birth, she recounts the story her settling into her new home in the Finistère département, in the northwest of France. It is told in a series of vignettes about gardening, learning the language, dealing with French bureaucracy, and struggling with writer's block.
She was awarded a doctorate honoris causa ad gradum (honorary degree) by the Faculty of Human Sciences at the Mid-Sweden University in Östersund in 2006.
“In the same way that there's a partner for every person, there's a place. All you have to do is find your own among the billions that belong to other people, you have to be awake, you have to choose.”