Göran Schildt was born in 1917 in Helsinki. Ever since he was a child he dreamed of becoming a writer like his father, Runar Schildt. In his memoirs, he stated that he had a crate outside his father’s study where he wrote his first lyrics. Runar Schildt committed suicide when Göran Schildt was only 8 years old.
As Göran Schildt received private instruction in his home, he was able to pass his matriculation examination one year ahead of his classmates. He then traveled to France in order to learn French. In the autumn of 1934, he boarded in a house in the Pyrenees and during the spring of 1935 he studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris. At Christmas 1934 he traveled to the island of Mallorca and there, for the first time in his life, he saw the Mediterranean. In 1937 Göran Schildt made another important trip, this time to Italy together with his friend Georg Henrik von Wright.
Göran Schildt participated in the Winter War of 1939–40 and was severely wounded by an explosive bullet that hit him in the stomach. During the long convalescent period, he decided that if he survives, he will sail down to the Mediterranean on a boat of his own. That dream was fulfilled in 1948, when he, on the ketch Daphne and together with his first wife Mona Morales–Schildt, sailed along the French rivers and canals down to the Italian port city of Lavagna in Liguria. His debute book «In the Wake of a Wish» (1949), in which he recounts the story of this trip, was a great success for Göran Schildt.
As a writer, Göran Schildt is best known for the books about his sailing adventures on Daphne. However, his writing is diverse and includes scholarly works on cultural history and art history as well as essays, journalism, travel writing, biographies and fiction. His doctoral thesis in art history is a study of the French artist Paul Cézanne. Notably, his book about André Gide apparently contributed to the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to this French author in 1947. Göran Schildt applied for the professorship in art history at the University of Helsinki in 1947, but eventually had second thoughts about this decision and withdrew his application at the last moment. Instead of academia, he chose sailing and the free life of a writer.
In 1965 Göran Schildt acquired a second home on the Greek island of Leros. Here he came in direct contact with the Greek culture. And here Daphne got her new home harbour. Today, the restored Daphne is on display at the maritime museum Forum Marinum in Turku.
The friendship between Alvar Aalto and Göran Schildt Schildt began in 1952 when Schildt together with his friend Roberto Sambonet visited Aalto's architectural studio in Helsinki. This meeting resulted in a close friendship that lasted until Aalto’s death in 1976. Schildt published articles on Aalto’s new buildings and after Aalto's death he wrote a biography in four volumes about the architect. As a token of friendship Alvar Aalto offered to design a house for Göran and Christine Schildt in Ekenäs. The house was completed in 1970. It was in this house that Göran Schildt drew his last breath in 24 March 2009. The house is owned by the Christine and Göran Schildt foundation and will be opened to the public in 2020 (More information under Villa Schildt).