The world's most celebrated literary award, the Nobel Prize, has gone to eccentric choices often enough to stir grumblings about favoritism, political influence, and dismay at a tendency to seek geographical distribution instead of international renown. This year the selection was a case of sweets to the Swedes. The 1974 winners: Swedish Poet Harry Martinson, 70, and Swedish Novelist Eyvind Johnson, 74. Martinson's best-known work, Aniara, published in English in 1956, is a narrative poem about a space voyage. Johnson's chef-d'oeuvre, a semi-autobiographical series called The Novel About Olaf, published in the...
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