Åsa Wohlin was born in Stockholm as the daughter of managing director Nils Wohlin and the well-known freelance writer Margit Cassel. She graduated in Lund in 1955 and in the 1950s wrote poems for periodicals such as Vox, Upptakt, and Ord & Bild as well as book reviews for the daily press. After working for different book publishers, she became a television critic for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter in the first half of the 1960s. Later, after retraining in the 1970s, she worked as a technician and security representative.
Her debut, Strofer från en sovstad (P), 1957, is characterised by the ironic attitude and earnest jocularity that is typical of the Lund poets. It received a great deal of attention, as did her next collection Mellan ja och nej of 1965. Human community and distance are important themes. Another very clear theme in her poems from 1965 is that of poetry as a possibility and counter-language. She also examines the themes of female roles and “the tyranny of sexistentialism”.
