Aniara (poem)
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For other works with the same name, see Aniara
Aniara is a poem of science fiction written by the Swede Harry Martinson in 1956. It consists of 103 cantos and relates the drama of a space ship which, originally bound for Mars, shoots off into the solar system and into an existential struggle. The style is symbolic, sweeping and innovative for its time:
- We listen daily to the sonic coins
- provided every one of us and played
- through the Finger-singer worn on the left hand.
- We trade coins of diverse denominations:
- and all of them play all that they contain
- and though a dyma 1 scarcely weighs one grain
- it plays out like a cricket on each hand
- blanching here in this distraction-land.
Some of Aniara had previously been published in Martinson's Cikada (1953).
An opera by Karl-Birger Blomdahl also called Aniara premiered in 1959 with a libretto by Erik Lindegren based on Martinson's poem.