Runar Schildt

Karl Runar Schildt was born in Helsinki on October 26, 1888. Working as a librarian and literary director at the Svenska Teatern, Schildt developed an exquisitely refined, ironic, and psychologically delicate Swedish prose style.

His collections of novellas—including Regnbågen (The Rainbow, 1916) and Häxskogen (The Witch Wood)—probed the existential insecurity of the Swedish-speaking minority and the brutal psychological scars of the Civil War. Tormented by writer's block and depression, he shot himself in the courtyard of the Swedish Theatre in 1925 at thirty-six.