Bengt Jangfeldt

Prize-winning Swedish historian and writer Bengt Jangfeldt explains how the lives of the family that gave its name to the Nobel Prize are fundamentally intertwined with the histories of Sweden and Russia and the economic development of Europe.

The chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, established the Nobel Prize with a bequest after his death in 1896. Jangfeldt says Alfred was just one of a family of talented individuals. The Nobels moved from Sweden to Russia in the 1830s where they ran one of the country’s biggest machine factories and founded the oil industry. Everything was swept away in the 1917 revolution when the family was forced to return to Sweden. Jangfeldt says the Nobel family story stands out as one of brilliance and resilience at a time of immense change.

Jangfeldt is a two-time winner of the August prize, the Swedish equivalent of the Pulitzer. His previous books include Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele, winner of the Swedish Academy’s prize for biography, and The Hero of Budapest: The Triumph and Tragedy of Raoul Wallenberg.

This event is part of the festival’s programme of Swedish literature and culture.