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Born in 1951 and emigrating to Sweden in 1969, he studied the history of ideas to become later one of the prominent publicists and reporters of the largest Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. In 1997, he publicised the forced sterilisation carried out by the Swedish state between 1935 and 1976 on thousands of ‘unwanted’ citizens. His articles resulted in the payment of damages to the victims in the amount of over 250 million kronas. His publications sparked off an intense debate on similar practices in other Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, and the USA. This issue is discussed in his book De rena och de andra (Polish: Higieniści. Z dziejów eugeniki; Czarne, 2011). He received numerous awards for his articles, several Swedish Academy awards, Grand Prize for Journalism (for the Polski hydraulik reportage series – Polish edition: Czarne publishing house, 2008, and extended edition: Agora, 2013). In the wake of his reportage on Swedish forests (Leśna mafia; Agora, 2014), Land voted him ‘the King of the Forest.’ His latest book Huset med de två tornen was published also in Poland by Karakter (Dom z dwiema wieżami) and won the Ryszard Kapuściński Award for Literary Reportage.

pic. Sofia Runarsdotter