Lars Erik Einar Gustafsson (17 May 1936 – 3 April 2016) was a Swedish poet, novelist, and scholar. Among his awards were the in 2006, the Goethe Medal in 2009, the Thomas Mann Prize in 2015, and the International Nonino Prize in Italy in 2016. Life and career Gustafsson was born in Västerås, completed his secondary education at the Västerås Gymnasium and continued to Uppsala University, where he studied literature, aesthetics, sociology and philosophy. In 1960, he received a licentiate degree in philosophy. In 1978, he was awarded a PhD in theoretical philosophy with a dissertation on speech and literature. He later served for four years on the university's board of regents (1994-1998). Already by 1960 Gustafsson was publishing novels and poetry regularly. In addition to his literary work, he was editor-in-chief of the renowned literary journal Bonniers Litterära Magasin from 1962 to 1972 . He soon established international contacts, notably to the German authors in Group 47. In 1972, through a DAAD fellowship he came to West Berlin, where he lived for two years. During this period, he also traveled extensively, among other places to Australia, Singapore, Japan, Israel, and the United States. Throughout his career, he attended and participated in many international academic and cultural events. John Updike described Gustafsson as "the enviably ideal conferee, a red-bearded fish never out of water, loving books, ideas, and discourse equally, and everywhere adept." Having been invited to visit the University of Texas at Austin by its Germanic Studies department in 1972 and again in 1974, and because Austin was his wife's hometown he moved there in 1983, where he served at first as adjunct professor in Germanic Studies, later as professor, then Distinguished Professor, in the Plan II Honors program, teaching philosophy and creative writing. He returned to Sweden in 2003 while continuing to hold a research professorship in the university; in 2006, he retired. He lived in Stockholm, spending summers in Västmanland. He died at the age of 79 on 3 April 2016. Gustafsson was married three times: in 1961 to Madeleine Gustafsson (two children); in 1982 to Alexandra Chasnoff (two children); in 2005 to Agneta Blomqvist. In 1981 Gustafsson converted to Judaism. In May 2009, Lars Gustafsson declared that he would vote for the Pirate Party in the upcoming elections for the European Parliament. However, in August 2010 he left the Pirate Party in protest of its cooperation