Graduate of Gothenburg University. Head of the cultural section, Expressen (Stockholm), 1977-1982. Editor-in-Chief and Head of the cultural section, Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), 1982-1998. Presently Visiting Professor, Stockholm University School of Journalism and Media Research. Member of the board of the Swedish Helsinki Committee and of Reporters sans frontieres. Chairman of the Swedish Rushdie Committee until 1999. Awarded the Swedish Grand Prize for Journalism, 1997, and the Torgny Segetstedt Award, 1998. President, Swedish PEN, 2001-2002. Member of the board of the Swedish Helsinki Committee and of Reporters Without Borders.

Publications include: Trans Europe Express (1978), co-author Samhället som teater - estetik och politik i Tredje riket (Staging Society - Aesthetics and Politics in the Third Reich, 1984). Essays in Scandinavian, German, French and American journals.