The Sorrow Gondola

The Sorrow Gondola is a poetry collection by the Swedish writer Tomas Tranströmer, published in 1996. Its title refers to La lugubre gondola, a composition by Franz Liszt, and the book was the first Tranströmer published after the stroke he suffered in the autumn of 1990.

The general theme is the poet's apparent inability to write poetry after that event. About half of the poems were written before the stroke, which gives the collection a double perspective on creation and physical fragility. It is also the first of his collections to make use of the Japanese haiku form, which would dominate his next book, The Great Enigma.

The book received the August Prize in 1996 and was a considerable bestseller in Sweden.