Biographies have been written about the author, Stieg Larsson, who has become a phenomenon in the last few years, but as he died before his first book was even published in the UK not many people had the chance to talk to him about his writing and his life. Here his author and journalist friend, Baksi, tells the real story of the man behind the Millennium Trilogy.
Five years after his death, Stieg Larsson is best known as the author of the Millennium Trilogy, but during his career as a journalist he was a crucial protagonist in the battle against racism and for democracy in Sweden, and one of the founders of the anti-facist magazine Expo. Kurdo Baksi first met Larsson in 1992; it was the beginning of an intense friendship, and a fruitful but challenging working relationship. In this candid and rounded memoir, Baksi answers the questions a multitude of Larsson's fans have already asked, about his upbringing; the recurring death threats; his insomnia and his vices; his feminism so evident in his books and his dogmatism. What was he like as a colleague? Who provided the inspiration for his now-immortal characters (Baksi is one of the few who appears in the trilogy as himself)? Who was Lisbeth Salander?
Kurdo Baksi was born in 1965 in northern Kurdistan, and in 1980 came to settle in Sweden. In 1987 he first published the magazine Rash U Spi ('Black and White'), which deals with racial issues across Europe. He is the author of ten books on human rights, racism, emigration and exile, and in 2000 he was awarded the Olaf Palme Peace Prize. Laurie Thompson is the distinguished translator of the novels of Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser and Åke Edwardson. He was editor of Swedish Book Review (1983–2002).
