Astrid Lindgren
Astrid Lindgren 14 November 1907 – 28 January 2002), was a Swedish author and screenwriter. Her best known works are her children’s books series including among others, Karlsson-on-the-roof, Ronja the Robbers daughter, The brothers Lionheart and Emil of Lönneberga. However, Lindgren’s by far most successful book series is the one about Pippi Longstocking(长袜子皮皮), the world’s strongest girl who lives in a house by herself with her monkey and her horse.
She is the world’s 25th most translated author and her books have sold around 145 million copies worldwide. Her books have been translated into 90 languages and been published in 100 countries. Her children’s books have been made into several tv-series, movies, plays, animated movies and computer games. She has won awards and honors worldwide and she is arguably one of the world’s most beloved and well-known children’s books author. At her burial the Swedish Royal Family attended, as well as the prime minister and the culture minister of Sweden and several members of the Swedish parliament. Her casket was taken through the streets of Stockholm being escorted by the Swedish cavalry and the King’s Royal Guard.
Henning Mankell
Henning Mankell (born 3 February 1948) is a renowned Swedish crime writer, occasional children's author and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most iconic creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander. Kurt Wallander is a fictional police inspector living and working in Ystad,[12] Sweden. In the novels, he solves shocking murders with his colleagues. The novels have an underlying question: "What went wrong with Swedish society?" The series has won many awards, including the German Crime Prize and the British 2001 CWA Gold Dagger for Sidetracked. He has also written several plays and original screenplay for television. His books about Kurt Wallander have been made into over 30 movies in Sweden.
Stieg Larsson
Karl Stig-Erland Larsson (15 August 1954 – 9 November 2004) was a Swedish journalist and writer, born in Skelleftehamn outside Skellefteå. He is best known for his authorship of the Millennium Trilogy of crime novels which were published posthumously. He was the second best-selling author in the world in 2008. By March 2010 his Millennium trilogy had sold 27 million copies in more than 40 countries. At his death, Larsson left behind manuscripts of three completed but unpublished novels in a series. He wrote them for his own pleasure after returning home from his job in the evening, making no attempt to get them published until shortly before his death. The first was published in Sweden in 2005 as Män som hatar kvinnor ("Men who hate women"), published in English as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was awarded the prestigious Glass Key award as the best Nordic crime novel in 2005. His second novel, Flickan som lekte med elden (The Girl Who Played with Fire), received the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award in 2006.The third novel in the so-called Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, was published in the United States in May 2010.
The Swedish film production company Yellow Bird has produced film versions of the Millennium Trilogy, co-produced with The Danish film production company Nordisk Film and TV company, which were released in Scandinavia in 2009. Stieg Larsson is the first author to sell more than one million e-books on Amazon.com
Liza Marklund
Eva Elisabeth "Liza" Marklund (born 9 September 1962 in Pålmark near Piteå, Norrbotten, Sweden) is a Swedish journalist and crime writer. Her novels, most of which feature the fictional character Annika Bengtzon, a newspaper journalist, have been published in thirty languages. Marklund is the co-owner of Sweden's third largest publishing house, Piratförlaget and a columnist in the Swedish tabloid Expressen. She is also a Unicef ambassador. The Postcard Killers, a crime thriller written in collaboration with American bestselling author James Patterson, is Marklund's twelfth book.[1] It was published on January 27, 2010, in Sweden, and became number one on the Swedish bestseller list in February 2010.[2] It was published on 16 August 2010 in the United States.[3][4][5][6]At the end of August, it reached number one on the New York Times best-seller list, making Liza Marklund the second Swedish author (the first one being Stieg Larsson with the Millennium Trilogy) ever to reach the number one spot.
Her books have been number one bestsellers in all five Nordic countries.
In 2002 and 2003, two of Liza Marklund's crime novels were listed on the international bestseller lists by the online magazine Publishing Trends, Prime Time ranking and The Red Wolf ranking.
Two novels about Annika Bengtzon, The Bomber and Paradise, have been filmed in Swedish by the English director Colin Nutley. The actress Helena Bergström starred in the role as Annika Bengtzon in both movies. They premiered in 2001 and 2002.
Jan Guillou
Jan Oskar Sverre Lucien Henri Guillou (born 17 January 1944) is a Swedish author and journalist. Among his books are a series of spy fiction novels about a spy named Carl Hamilton, and a trilogy of historical fiction novels about a Knight Templar, Arn Magnusson. He is the owner of one of the largest publishing companies in Sweden, Piratförlaget, together with Liza Marklund and his common-law wife, publisher Ann-Marie Skarp.
Guillou's fame in Sweden was established during his time as an investigative journalist. In 1973, he and co-reporter Peter Bratt exposed a secret intelligence organization in Sweden, Informationsbyrån (IB). He is still active within journalism as a column writer for the Swedish evening tabloid Aftonbladet.
In October 2009, the tabloid Expressen accused Jan Guillou of having been active as an agent of the Soviet spy organization KGB between 1967 and 1972. Jan Guillou confirmed he had a series of contacts with KGB representatives during this period, he also admits to having received payments from KGB, but maintains that his purpose was to collect information for his journalistic work.
