Enquist’s first book, The Chrystal Eye, was published in 1964. He is the author of some twenty novels, several dramas and some film manuscripts (e.g. for a famous film about the Norwegian Nobel laureate in literature, Knut Hamsun). He has also worked as a literature critic for some of the biggest Swedish newspapers. He is considered one of the foremost Swedish writers of the late 20^th century and has been translated into some 30 languages.

As a youngster in the 50’s, Enquist was one of the best high jumpers in Sweden, with a personal best of 1.97 meters. His experience from that time and his interest in athletics are reflected in a number of his works, e.g. in The Cathedral in Munich (reporting from the 1972 Summer Olympics) where he, among other things, most brilliantly describes the fight of a Swedish swimmer, Larsson, during the 400 m medley final. The Swede finally won the gold medal, but his margin to the silver medallist, an American, was only two milliseconds. After that event, milliseconds are no longer registered in swimming competitions. In his book, Enquist does not focus on the very thrilling competition, but on the facial expressions and other behaviour of a journalist from the same city as Larsson.

Some of Enquist’s references to athletics were less successful. Two sentences about the East German communist leader Walter Ulbricht may be quoted: "Among the great politicians of the world, Mr. Ulbricht is certainly the most fanatical lover of athletics, doesn’t that reconcile almost everything?", and "In some way, I feel the same cool, vehement and worried love for him as for my daddy." (From The Second, 1971).

Enquist grew up in a region marked by a devout but at the same time rather austere piety. The chapel was the neighbouring house of his parents’ home, and, according to his own words, he considered himself a believer until the age of 15. His writing is strongly influenced by this, and several works with motives from his home district contain examples of this godliness. We may mention March of the Musicians (1978) in which he describes life and work in the 1910’s and the attempts at creating labour unions among the saw-mill workers in his native community. Religious motives are also very important in his last novel, Journey of Lewi (2001), which deals with the Whitsuntide movement and its founder.

Gradually, however, Enquist converted to another religion and became an impenitent left extremist, a fellow-traveller. He was among the very few Swedish defenders of Pol Pot, and after the growing heaps of corpses in Cambodia had begun to be known, he wrote in an infamous newspaper article (1975): "A number of editorials pour out their rage at the Cambodian liberation movement which maybe too vehemently has evacuated Phnom Penh."

In his literary works, Enquist has specialised in using historical events as starting points and then using his own imagination. He has been very successful and received a number of awards for his writing. In 1969, he got The Literature Prize of The Nordic Council for The Mercenaries, a novel based on the Swedish extradition (in 1945) to the Soviet Union of Baltic refugees who had worn German uniforms during the war. In 1997, he was given the literature prize named after the Swedish writer and Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and in 1999 he was granted the August Prize (named after the Swedish writer/dramatist August Strindberg). The latter prize was awarded to him for his novel The Royal Physician’s Visit which deals with the German physician Struensee who became the physician of the insane Danish king Christian VII and who soon took over all the king’s duties, including the queen with whom he got a child. In 2001, the famous German writer Günter Grass, a Nobel laureate himself, proposed Enquist as the recipient of the Prize that year, 100 years after the first Nobel Prize.

As seen, Enquist has definitely become "a prophet in his native town", in his own right. In addition to the above March of the Musicians, we should mention Captain Nemo’s Library which is also based on an event in his home village, namely the switching of two boys right after their birth at the local nursery, a mistake which was corrected after six years when it was discovered, with severe consequences for the involved.

In portraying life in his native district, he sometimes uses words and sentences from the local dialect, which gives a flavour of authenticity to his portrayals. Though this is much appreciated by wide ranges of his readers, it might be questioned whether those who do not master that dialect (e.g. critics from central and south Sweden and foreign translators) fully understand what the author wants to express.