Lars Noren, generally considered Sweden's greatest playwright since August Strindberg, had his first play produced in 1973 at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm, when he was about 30. His breakthrough came in 1982 with Night Is Mother to the Day. Noren has since written about 75 plays that combine humor with powerful emotional impact and feature his dynamic search for new forms of expression. His work has been translated into several languages and regularly performed in Nordic and European countries. Two Plays: And Give Us the Shadows and Autumn and Winter is the first book to present Noren's plays in English. And Give Us the Shadows is a fictional work based on Eugene O'Neill's life, set in Marblehead, MA, on O'Neill's 61st birthday, when he and his wife, Carlotta, are expecting a visit from his two sons. Autumn and Winter centers on parents and their two grownup daughters who reveal family secrets during one of their regular monthly dinners. .