Harry Martinson (1904—1978) was a Swedish sailor, author and poet. In 1949 he was elected into the Swedish Academy. He was awarded a joint Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974 together with fellow Swede Eyvind Johnson. The choice for Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson was very controversial as both were on the Nobel panel. They and Graham Greene, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov were the favored candidates that year.