New Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy
Photo: Samuel Unéus
At the Swedish Academy’s Annual Grand Ceremony held Saturday, Permanent Secretary Mats Malm announced that, after seven years in the post, he will be stepping down this summer. Malm has been the Swedish Academy’s Permanent Secretary since 1 June 2019. The Academy has decided to appoint Ingrid Carlberg as his successor.
“It has been a privilege to work for the Academy as Permanent Secretary. Seven years is a reasonable term of office, and as part of my assignment, I have therefore prepared a handover of the role. I have the utmost confidence in Ingrid and look forward to our continued collaboration, albeit in an altered form,” says Malm.
Ingrid Carlberg will take up her position as Permanent Secretary on 1 June 2026:
“I am extremely honoured by the great trust that the Academy has shown in me. Being its Permanent Secretary is a responsibility that I take on with joy and a large slice of humility. I am passionate about the advancement of Swedish language and literature. This work addresses, as I see it, one of the crucial issues of our time.”
Ingrid Carlberg, born in 1961, is an author and journalist. She has written several children’s books but, since making her breakthrough with the acclaimed reportage book The Pill. A Story of Depressions and Doctors, Researchers and Freud, People and Markets (2008), has mainly devoted herself to non-fiction. For her major biography of Raoul Wallenberg, There is a Room Here Waiting for You (2012), she was awarded the August Prize. Her major biography of Alfred Nobel: Nobel. The Mysterious Alfred, His World and His Prize (2019) also received numerous awards. Both works have been translated into many different languages. In her latest book, The Marionettes. A Story About the World as Political Theater, she adopts a historical perspective in portraying remotely controlled influence campaigns, from the Berlin and Paris of the interwar period to the troll farms and viral public outcries of our time.
In 2020, Carlberg was awarded His Majesty the King’s Medal for her “significant contributions as an author”. In addition to her writing, she has been a board member of organisations such as PEN Sweden and the Swedish Publicists’ Association.
A more detailed presentation of Ingrid Carlberg can be found here »
Contact: Louise Hedberg, Administrative Director
louise.hedberg@svenskaakademien.se, 08–555 125 02