Enquist was born and raised in , a village in present-day
Skellefteå Municipality,
Västerbotten. He was the only son of a single mother, who became a widow when he was half a year old. In his youth, he was a promising athlete with a
high jump personal best of 1.97 meters. He studied at
Uppsala University, receiving a degree in the
history of literature. During his time in Uppsala he started writing, his first novel
Kristallögat being published in 1961, and became a newspaper journalist. Enquist was to write several more novels based on true events. He lived in Denmark from 1978 to 1993 where he was married to Danish journalist Lone Bastholm.
Kapten Nemos bibliotek (1991) took inspiration from where two newly born boys were
accidentally switched;
The Visit of the Royal Physician (1999) was based on the life of Danish King
Christian VII and his physician
Johann Friedrich Struensee, and Struensee's political machinations and relationship with the King's wife
Caroline Matilda in the 1770s;
Lewis resa (2001) covered the life of
Pentecostal Lewi Pethrus; while
Boken om Blanche och Marie (2004) was based on the friendship of
Marie Curie and mental patient
Marie "Blanche" Wittman. Enquist's first stage play was
Tribadernas natt (1975), a story about Swedish author
August Strindberg, his soon-to-be ex-wife
Siri von Essen, and von Essen's presumed lover . Awards for his writing have included the
Dobloug Prize in 1988, the
Selma Lagerlöf Prize in 1997, and the Italian
Flaiano Prize in 2002. Besides books and stage plays, Enquist also wrote screenplays for motion pictures, including
Pelle Erövraren (1987) and
Hamsun (1996), and at the
27th Guldbagge Awards in 1993, Enquist was nominated for the award for Best Screenplay for the film
Il Capitano: A Swedish Requiem. He also received the
Independent Foreign Fiction Prize as well as the
Nelly Sachs Prize in 2003 for
The Visit of the Royal Physician.
The Visit of the Royal Physician also became the first of two books by Enquist to be awarded the
August Prize, the other being his 2008 autobiography
Ett annat liv. ==Bibliography==