Boel Westin

Boel Westin (born 14 April 1951) is a Swedish literary scholar. She is professor emerita at Stockholm University, where she became Professor of Comparative Literature in 1998. From 2009 to 2013, Westin was Head of department at the Department of Comparative Literature and History of Ideas at Stockholm University, and became emerita in 2018.

She has been a member of the preparatory committee for the Swedish Research Council and a jury member for the Nordic Council Literature Prize. Since 2014, she has been the jury chair for the international children's book award Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA).

Life

She graduated from Stockholm University. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on Jansson, The Family in the Valley (1988). She also published her first biography: Tove Jansson. Words, Image, Life (2007).   Westin was the first researcher to have access to Tove Jansson's archive  Westin wrote his first academic article on Jansson as early as 1974, and has also, together with Helen Svensson, published a collection of Tove Jansson's letters: Brev från Tove Jansson (2014).

Works in English

• Jansson, Tove (2019). Westin, Boel (ed.). Brev från Tove Jansson [Letters from Tove]. Translated by Death, Sarah. ISBN 978-1-908745-72-9.
• Westin, Boel (2014). Tove Jansson. Translated by Mazzarella, Silvester. London: Sort of Books. ISBN 978-1-908745-45-3..