Lars Gyllensten was an author and an active participant in public debate. In 1989 he resigned his membership of the Swedish Academy. Bo Larsson painted this portrait of Gyllensten in 1996. It offers several clues to his writing. In the background, for example, we see a small self-portrait of the artist Goya, which can be seen as an allusion to Gyllensten’s book Carnivora: Konversationsövningar i mänskligt röstläge (Carnivora: Conversation Exercises in a Human Tone of Voice), published in 1953.