Peter Landelius honours the legacy of his colleague Raoul Wallenberg; he uses diplomacy as a tool to serve people and the common good, and also, being a man of letters, as a vehicle for the transmission of culture.
Apart from Swedish, his mother tongue, Peter Landelius is fluent in German, Spanish, French, English, and Russian. Through the years, he has published two books of essays and a number of literary and political newspaper articles. In an extensive career as a translator, he has become the Swedish voice of some of the best hispanic writers: i.a., Pablo Neruda (” 20 love poems and a desperate song”), César Vallejo (”Full of world” – collected poems), Julio Cortázar (”Hopscotch”), Gabriel García Márquez (”Love in the times of cholera”, ”Cronicle of a death foretold” and others), Ernesto Sábato (”On heros and graves”), Eliseo Diego (”The days of your life” ), Mario Benedetti (”Another notion of fatherland” ), Benito Pérez Galdos (”Fortunata and Jacinta”), and Leopoldo Alas ”Clarín”(”La Regenta”).
In 1982 he won the literary prize ”Novella” in Sweden and in 1986, the Royal Silver Medal for Fine Arts in Spain. In 1991, the Swedish Academy of Science awarded him the Letterstedt prize, and in 1993, he won the national Elsa Thulin prize for translation. His diplomatic endeavours were distinguished in 1996 with the Order of the Liberator in Venezuela, the Quetzal Order of Civilian Merit in Guatemala, the Order of Military Merit and that of Civilian Merit in Spain, and the Order of Civilian Merit in Peru.
This unusual and successful combination of diplomatic and intellectual virtues make Ambassador Landelius an example to younger generations and public servants for his honesty, his capacity, and his human values.
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- 1943 : born in Solna, Sweden. Married to Nancy Julien, four children.
- 1965-67: LLD , with an emphasis in international law, and a BA in Russian language and civil law, Univ. of Uppsala.
- 1967: Attaché, Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
- 1968: Second secretary, London. 1970: Second secretary, Permanent Delegation to the OECD.
- 1971 : Private secretary to the Foreign Minister, Stockholm.
- 1974 : First secretary, Havana.
- 1975 : First secretary, Permanent Delegation to the OECD.
- 1978: Director a.i., UNESCO Liaison Office, New York.
- 1979: Deputy director, Swedish Information Service, New York.
- 1980: Deputy director, Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
- 1983: Minister, Madrid.
- 1987: Ambassador, Guatemala, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa.
- 1989: studies at CFIA, Harvard University, USA.
- 1990 : Adviser (European affairs), Office of the Prime Minister, Stockholm.
- 1991: Ambassador, Caracas, Port of Spain, Bridgetown.
- 1997: Ambassador Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Asunción.
