Pär Fabian Lagerkvist

Pär Fabian Lagerkvist was a Swedish author who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1951. Lagerkvist wrote poems, plays, novels, stories, and essays of considerable expressive power and influence from his early 20s to his late 70s.

I wanted to know

but was only allowed to ask,

I wanted light

but was only allowed to burn

I demanded the ineffable

but was only allowed to live.

I complained,

but nobody understood what I meant.