Sigfrid Siwertz was a very successful writer, and as he entered the Swedish Academy in 1932, his career as a writer peaked. But on that occasion he came into conflict with a younger generation of writers, often with a working-class background. He mastered them in his inauguration speech and told them to show high moderation. A number of them attacked him in the press. Younger writers oriented towards international modernism challenged an older, realistic form of literature. Siwertz continued for almost forty years to write one book after another, but he became more and more irrelevant.