Pär Lagerkvist, born in born in Växjö, Sweden (May 23, 1891 - July 11, 1974) won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1951. He produced poems, plays, novels, stories, and essays of considerable expressive power and influence from his early 20s to his late 70s. Lagerkvist increasingly has dealt with the problem of man's relation to God, particularly in his three important novels, Dvärgen (1944) [The Dwarf], Barabbas (1950), and Sibyllan (1956) [The Sibyl]. Barabbas, the story of a «believer without faith», was his first truly international success, hailed as a masterwork (among others by fellow Nobel Prize in Literature winner André Gide).