Harry Martinson (1904-1978), son of a former sea captain and bankrupt shopkeeper, grew up in Jämshög in Blekinge and lost his father at the age of six. While his mother emigrated to California, Martinson and his siblings were sent to farms from year to year as "Verdingkinder." At the age of 16, Martinson signed on as a sailor and returned to Sweden in 1927 suffering from lung disease. His first volume of poetry, "The Ghost Ship," was published in 1929, the same year he married Helga Maria Swartz, who made her literary debut as Moa Martinson in 1933. Martinson's poems, novels, and travelogues were particularly successful with the younger generation. He settled near Stockholm, but the nomadic drive remained with him - he kept travelling. In the late 1930s, he wrote three unconventional volumes of texts about nature. In 1974, together with Eyvind Johnson, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature as a member of the Swedish Academy. Despite his great popularity with the public, many of his works were controversial. Martinson, an avowed Buddhist, eventually committed suicide with scissors during a stay in hospital.

Klaus-Jürgen Liedtke, born in 1950 in Südtondern, has published volumes of poetry and most recently the novel from documents "Nachkrieg und Die Trümmer aus Ostpreussen." In 2018, he published "Die Ostsee. Reports and stories from 2000 years." As a translator of Gunnar Ekelöf, Henry Parland, Edith Södergran, and many more, he was awarded the Paul Celan Prize in 2005 and the Gerard Bonnier Prize in 2014.

Fredrik Sjöberg, born in Västervik (Sweden) in 1958, studied biology and geology and works as a journalist, writer, and translator. His novel "The Flytrap" was nominated for the August Prize in 2008, and his collection of hoverflies was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2009. Most recently, "Vom Aufhören" was published in German in 2018. Sjöberg lives on the island of Runmarö near Stockholm.