Swedish short-story writer, novelist, and playwright whose works, showing the influence of William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, and Dagerman's older compatriot, Eyvind Johnson, have been held to express a sense of Existentialist anguish.

A journalist, Dagerman scored a critical success with his play Den dödsdömde (first performed, 1947; The Man Condemned to Die). He was associated with the literary magazines 40-tal (1947–48) and Prisma (1948–50). A collection of his stories, translated into English as The Games of Night, appeared in 1959, five years after his suicide.