Olof Gustaf Hugo Lagercrantz (10 March 1911 – 23 July 2002) was a Swedish writer, critic, literary scholar (PhD 1951) and publicist (editor-in-chief of Dagens Nyheter 1960–1975).

During the latter part of his professional life, Lagercrantz' concerns in his role as literary critic and cultural pundit progressed from the strictly aesthetic to the political.

[This quote needs a citation] Lagercrantz' political engagement became apparent during his time at Dagens Nyheter, where he was head of the cultural section from 1951 and editor-in-chief from 1960 on.

Lagercrantz was widely criticized for the conciliatory and fairly positive appraisals of Communism that he published in Dagens Nyheter after travelling as a journalist to the Soviet Union and China.

His upper-class childhood and adolescence are the subject of Min första krets (1982),[1] and the turbulence of his time at Dagens Nyheter is the topic of his memoir Ett år på sextiotalet (1990).