Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2011, has died at the age of eighty-three after a short illness, Anna Tillgren, a spokewoman for his publisher Bonniers, said.

Tranströmer’s work, known for its economy and deceptively simple descriptions of nature, has been translated into more than sixty languages.

Tranströmer worked as a psychologist in Swedish state institutions for most of his life, with juvenile offenders, disabled individuals, parole offenders, and individuals in drug rehabilitation, “...and many critics noticed that he frequently deployed his inventive and striking metaphors to examine the depths of the human mind,” New York Times writer Bruce Weber wrote in his obituary of Tranströmer, suggesting that his experiences as a psychologist profoundly informed his work.

Music also appeared as a theme throughout Tranströmer’s work (he was a renowned pianist). In 1990, however, the poet suffered a stroke that left him half-paralyzed and made it difficult for him to speak and write; still, he continued to play music using just his left hand, and after his stroke, published two poetry collections: The Sorrow Gondola (1996) and The Great Enigma (2004). Before he died, several Swedish composers wrote pieces for the left hand, specifically for him to play.

Tranströmer was born on April 15, 1931, in Stockholm, Sweden, where he grew up in the working-class district with his teacher mother. He began writing poetry while studying at the Sodra Latin School in Stockholm, and published his first book of poetry, 17 poems in 1954, when he was just twenty-three years old, to much public acclaim in Sweden.

He went on to study literature, history, poetics, the history of religion, and psychology at Stockholm University, where he briefly worked as an assistant in the University’s psychometric institution.

Tranströmer’s work was translated into English by the American poet Robert Bly, with whom he enjoyed a close friendship, and published works such as the collection, The Half-Finished Heaven, and Airmail: The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Transtromer. Tranströmer also penned a memoir, Memories Look at Me, translated by Robin Fulton.