Stieg Larsson would have been 70 years old: His sad success story

In the summer of 2004, Swedish author Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) found out that a major Swedish publisher wanted to publish his Millennium crime series. Unfortunately, he never found out how successful the worldwide bestsellers would be, because Larsson died of a heart attack at the age of 50 on November 9, 2004. In 2009, the “Welt” newspaper compared his posthumous fame with that of Hollywood star Heath Ledger (1979-2008, Joker in “The Dark Knight”) and that of global star Michael Jackson (1958-2009).

At the time of his death, Larsson had a long-term partner, Eva Gabrielsson (70, memoir “There Are Things I Want You to Know” About Stieg Larsson and Me”), but no children. And so the unexpected success of the stories about the tenacious investigative journalist Michael Blomkvist and the ingenious master hacker Lisbeth Salander made Larsson’s brother Joakim and his father Erland “multimillionaires”.

Today, Thursday (15 August), the journalist and writer Stieg Larsson would have celebrated his 70th birthday.

Millennium novel series – three trilogies and several film adaptations

Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, originally intended to be ten volumes – “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2006), “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2007) and “The Girl Who Played the Dragon” (2008) were published posthumously – was not only a great success in book form. The crime novels were also made into a film in 2009. Michael Nyqvist (1960-2017, “John Wick”) played Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace (44, “Sherlock Holmes”) was seen as Salander. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” was made into a film again in 2011 by US director David Fincher (61, “House of Cards”), this time with Daniel Craig (56, “James Bond”) and Rooney Mara (39, “Her”) in the leading roles.

Stieg Larsson left behind “outlines of other novels in his series as well as an almost completed fourth novel”. However, his heirs did not want other authors to complete the works. However, they gave their go-ahead for a “continuation of the Millennium series without using the existing material as a free-standing novel”. In addition to the first trilogy, two more have now been created. “Conspiracy” (2015), “Persecution” (2017) and “Annihilation” (2019) are by the Swedish author David Lagercrantz (61). The first novel in this series was released in 2018 with Claire Foy (40, “The Crown”) as Lisbeth Salander.

The first volume of the third cycle, “Perdition” (2023), written by the award-winning Swedish author Karin Smirnoff (59), has been published so far.

Stieg Larsson was politically active

Born as Karl Stig-Erland Larsson in Skelleftehamn, northern Sweden, the son of two teenagers (both were 19) was also very politically active.

From 1995 onwards, the later thriller author was the editor of an anti-fascist magazine and was considered an expert on right-wing extremist movements. from his “explosive research” into the murder of the social democratic Swedish head of government Olof Palme (1927-1986).

Travel tips for “Millennium” fans

It is not only the main character of Millennium, investigative journalist Michael Blomkvist, who is said to have autobiographical traits of his creator. Fans of the crime series can still visit many of the places described in the books in Sweden today. summarized “Eight places you know from the books” in spring 2024.

Among other things, the address “Bellmansgatan 1” in Stockholm is listed, where the main character Carl Mikael Blomkvist lives in a penthouse. The address really exists. The same applies to the restaurant “Kvarnen” (“The Mill”) on “Tjärhovsgatan 4”, which Salander and Blomkvist often visit. And the “Kaffeebar”, Hornsgatan 78 / Bysistorget 6, is also real. It is said to have been Stieg Larsson’s regular café.