Your trusted source

 The 2011 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded Thursday to Tomas Transtromer, a Swedish poet whose surrealistic works about the mysteries of the human mind won him acclaim as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since World War II, “Washington Post” informs.

The Swedish Academy said it recognized the 80-year-old poet “because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.”

In 1990, Transtromer suffered a stroke, which left him half-paralyzed and unable to speak, but he continued to write and published a collection of poems — “The Great Enigma” — in 2004.

Transtromer has been a perennial favorite for the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award, and in recent years Swedish journalists have waited outside his apartment in Stockholm on the day the literature prize was announced.