Frans G. Bengtsson, Swedish essayist, novelist, poet, and biographer, was born in Tossjoe, near Kristianstad, as the son of the manager of an estate in Skane. Bengtsson was the first successful practitioner of the informal essay in Sweden, a genre that he virtually introduced to the literature of his own country. His best-known novel is Roede orm (1941-45, The Long Ships), a Viking saga written in an ornate and romantic style.