Englund was born in
Boden and studied a preparatory course for the caring professions for two years and then humanistic subjects for another two years in secondary school. He was then conscripted and served 15 months in the
Swedish Army at the
Norrbotten Regiment located in Boden. He was politically active in his youth and supported the
National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam. Englund studied
archaeology,
history, and theoretical
philosophy at
Uppsala University, completing a
bachelor's degree in 1983, after which he began doctoral studies in History. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1989 for his dissertation
Det hotade huset (English title in the dissertation abstract:
A House in Peril) (1989), an investigation of the worldview of the 17th-century Swedish nobility. During his period as a doctoral student, he had also worked for some time for the
Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service ("MUST"), and the year before receiving his doctorate he had published the bestselling
Poltava, a detailed description of the
Battle of Poltava, where the troops of Swedish king
Charles XII were defeated by the Russian army of
Tsar Peter I in 1709. Englund has received the
August Prize (1993) and the
Selma Lagerlöf Prize for Literature (2002). He was elected a member of the
Swedish Academy in 2002. On 1 June 2009, he succeeded
Horace Engdahl as the permanent secretary of the Academy. In 2009, Englund "criticized the jury panel as being too '
Eurocentric'" and "told the Associated Press that it was easier for Europeans to relate to European literature". "It’s the result of psychological bias that we really try to be aware of," Englund was quoted as saying. In December 2014, he announced his retirement from the post of secretary of the Swedish Academy. On 1 June 2015,
Sara Danius succeeded Peter Englund as permanent secretary. On 6 April 2018, Englund announced that he would no longer participate in the Academy's work. On the same day,
Klas Östergren and
Kjell Espmark also declared that they would become inactive members of the Academy. On 10 January 2019, Englund announced on his blog that he and fellow Academy member Kjell Espmark would be returning as active members of the Academy. He stated that continued work to renew the Academy has now reached a point that it must be done from within. == Bibliography ==