[1][2] Ahnlund, who was born in Stockholm, was an expert on 19th- and 20th-century Nordic, especially Danish, literature.

He was also a novelist and published translations of various writers such as Julio Cortázar.

Due to conflicts with the former permanent secretary of the Academy, Sture Allén, and his successor, Horace Engdahl, Ahnlund had only participated minimally in the work of the Academy from 1996 until his death in 2012.

On 11 October 2005, just a few days before the announcement of the 2005 Nobel laureate for literature, he declared in a piece in Svenska Dagbladet that he would leave the Academy in protest against the choice of recipient of the prize the previous year, Elfriede Jelinek; he characterized Jelinek's work as chaotic and pornographic.

You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.This biographical article about a Swedish historian is a stub.