Share on Facebook
Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist and writer, world famous for his "Millennium trilogy" of crime novels, which were published posthumously. Here are 40 facts about the author:
- Born as Karl Stig Erland Larsson on 15 August 1954 in Vesterbottens Ian, Sweden to Erland Larsson and Vivianne Bostrom. His father and maternal grandfather were employed in the Ronnskarsverken smelting plant.
- He was left with his maternal grandfather for the first nine years as his father moved to Stockholm. He resigned from his job due to arsenic poisoning in the smelting plant.
- He moved back to the city of Umea after his grandfather Severin Bostrom died of heart attack at the age of 50. He was not found of the city environment and cherished the village environment of his grandparents place.
- His wife Eva Gabrielsson described in her book “There Are Things I Want You To Know” About Stieg Larsson and Me”, that his time in his grandparent’s village were the inspiration for him to write “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” based on that place.
- He had to undergo compulsory military service for 16 months after he was drafted into Swedish Army in 1974.
- He received a typewriter as a gift from his parents on his twelfth birthday. His first attempt on writing was a science fiction genre.
- He developed an interest in science fiction from an early age and became active in science fiction fandom in Sweden in 1971. He also attended his first science fiction convention in Stockholm in 1972.
- Larsson’s friend John Henri Holmberg wrote a biographical essay titled “The Tattooed Girl” which includes his fanzine writings and short stories. It also includes part of his life at the SFSF.
- He was the editor or co-editor of many science fiction magazines including Sfaren and Fijagh. He also became the president of Skandinavisk Forening for Science Fiction (SFSF), a Swedish Science Fiction Fan Club in 1978 – 1979.
- He changed the spelling in his name from Stig Larsson to Stieg Larsson in his early twenties to avoid confusion with his good friend Stig Larsson. His friend became a well known author much before Stieg.
- During the Vietnam War he focused more on politics and journalism. According to his father he supported left parties and joined thousands of young people marching out shouting the slogan “Out of Vietnam”.
- He met his wife Eva Gabrielsson during an anti Vietnam rally in 1972. She was an architectural historian and a political activist too.
- After his stint in the Army he spent some time in Eritrea in East Africa, to train female Marxist guerillas to use grenade launchers. Due to his kidney disease he had to abandon the training.
- He was instrumental in the establishment of Swedish Expo Foundation to counteract against the growth of extreme right activism. He became the editor of the magazine “Expo” in 1995.
- He lived under death threats for many years owing to his involvement in exposing right wing extremism. He was a debater and lecturer on extreme right wing.
- His first ever book was published in 1991 titled “Extremehogern” meaning The Extreme Right. He had spent all his time into independent research on right wing, when not doing day job.
- He lost his life to heart attack when he strode up flight of stairs on 9 November 2004. He was 50 years old and many speculated that it might be due to several death threats he received as editor of Expo.
- Upon his death his estate and future royalties from the book sales went to his father and brother. Gabrielsson found a will dating 1977 that left his assets to communist workers league. But it was rejected by the law as it had no witness.
- Gabielsson lost her rights on his assets as they never married. According to the Swedish law married partners have to make their address publicly available and it was a security issue with death threats on Larsson’s life.
- Gabrielsson has control over Larsson’s laptop containing his last unfinished novel. She refused to hand it over to his parents and would not allow it to be published.
- His first novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” was awarded with Glass Key Award in 2005 as the best Nordic crime novel. It was initially published under the name “Men Who Hate Women” in Sweden but changed to the present title for English readers.
- The next book in the series “The Girl Who Played with Fire” won the best Swedish crime novel award in 2006.
- The third and final book in the Millennium series “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” was published in 2009 in United Kingdom and in 2010 in United States of America.
- The fourth book in the series “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” was published in August 2015. David Lagercrantz, an author and journalist from Sweden was contacted to write further books in the millennium series by Swedish publisher Norstedts.
- He was presented with Anthony Award for best first novel for his “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” in 2009. It is presented annually at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention.
- Most of his writings were influenced by many American writers and fiction authors. He made sure that his characters in the novels would read works of famous authors who influenced his writing.
- The famous character in the Millennium series Lisbeth Salander’s outlook is based upon a grown up character Pippi Longstocking from the children’s author Astrid Lindgren.
- Journalist character in the book “Mikael Blomkvist” sometimes also referred as “Kalle Blomkvist” in the novel is the name of a famous detective character created by Lindgren.
- In 2008 “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” won ITV3 Crime Thriller award in UK for international author of the year and Exclusive Books Boeke Prize in South Africa.
- According to Gabrielsson, Larsson witnessed a gang rape of a young girl by three of his friends when he was 15 years old. He could not forgive himself for not saving the girl and it changed his life completely.
- All his books are themed around the sexual violence against women and expressed his view of the world which he could not understand as a journalist. He had portrayed the fictionalized version of present Sweden which very few people knew, according to Gabrielsson.
- They also found similarities between Salander and Modesty Blaise by author Peter O’Donnell. Both of them had survived to become adults with special skills.
- His fictional hulk Ronald Niedermann also has some similarities with a character Simon Delicata, a giant from Modesty Blaise book “A Taste for Death”.
- He has a dubious distinction of being the first author to sell more than million e-books on the online site Amazon.com.
- His family had initiated an annual award in 2009 of 200,000 Swedish Krona to authors working in Larsson’s spirits. In 2015 Yang Jisheng of china won the award.
- American newspaper USA Today named him as the Author of the Year in 2010.
- “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” also won Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel in the year 2009. Members of the Mystery Readers International nominate and vote to select a winner annually.
- A miniseries titled Millennium based on the book by Stieg Larsson was broadcasted on Swedish television from 20 March 2010 to 24 April 2010. It won the Swedish television award at Kristallen 2010 and Emmy Award for best TV Movie in 2011.
- The first three books from the millennium series were made into movies in the year 2009 by the Swedish film production company Yellow Bird along with Danish film production company Nordisk Film to a very good reception.
- An English adaptation of the movie “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” was released on 21 December 2011 in North America. It was directed by David Fincher and produced by Yellow Bird along with Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Columbia Pictures.
