Stieg Larsson

He was in a long term relationship with architecture historian Eva Gabrielsson whom he met in 1972 during an anti-Vietnam rally. They remained together throughout his life but could not marry due to security risks. The Swedish Law needs couples, who intend to marry, to mention their addresses publicly. This would have posed life risk for Stieg Larsson who for long had received death threats.

On November 9, 2004, he succumbed to a heart attack after he had to climb several stairs to reach his office due to lift disorder. He was buried in the Södermalm district of Stockholm at the ‘Högalid Church’.

Although a will of 1977 was found where he left all his properties for the branch of the ‘Communist Workers League’ (at present the ‘Socialist Party’) at Umeå, but the un-witnessed will became invalid under the law of Sweden.

He was born as Karl Stig-Erland Larsson on August 15, 1954, in Umeå, Västerbottens län, Sweden, in the family of Erland Larsson and Vivianne Larsson. His father worked in the Rönnskärsverken smelting plant and was a Communist while his mother was a noted Social Democrat. Thus political atmosphere prevailed in his home.

His father had to leave the job due to arsenic poisoning and when the family shifted to Stockholm, his parents decided to keep the boy with his grandparents.

He was brought up by his grandparents till nine years of age at the countryside of Bjursele in Västerbotten County. He joined the village school and during snowy winters he used cross-country skis as a mode of transportation to attend school.

His grandfather Severin Boström, an ardent anti-fascist was a dedicated political activist who protested against the Nazis and faced confinement at the time of World War II. As he spent most of his early childhood with his grandparents, his personality was much influenced by them especially by his grandfather who he would cite as his role model.

After his grandfather’s demise he moved to Umea to be with his parents.

His early writings were dominated by science fictions and around 1971 he actively participated at the science fiction fandom of Sweden. ‘SF•72’ held in Stockholm was the first ever science fiction convention that he attended.

Some of his works during the early seventies include co-editing four issues of ‘Sfären’ along with Rune Forsgren and publishing a few short stories in during 1972-73. Some of his other early works found place in amateur magazines.

During his adolescence years his propensity towards the radical leftist views and tpolitics grew and his writings shifted from frictional ones to the more journalistic and political ones.

For sixteen months starting from 1974 he had to undertake a mandatory military service with the ‘Swedish Army’ under the conscription law. He was trained as a mortarman in Kalmar in a unit of infantry.

Thereafter he took part in rallies condemning the ‘Vietnam War’. The war emerged as one of his subjects of writings during that time. He became associated with a radical leftist group ‘Kommunistiska Arbetareförbundet’ and through them he edited a Trotskyist journal ‘Fjärde internationalen’ for a while. During 1974 to 1977 he co-edited nine issues of ‘FIJAGH!’, science fiction fanzines, along with Rune Forsgren.

His posthumously published crime novels of the ‘Millennium trilogy’ not only earned him international accolades but also garnered a sale of eighty million copies globally till March 2015.

The success of the trilogy was such that a fourth book of the series was delegated by ‘Norstedts Förlag’ which was authored by David Lagercrantz, a Swedish writer and crime journalist. The book that is based on the characters of Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium trilogy’ was published as ‘The Girl in the Spider's Web’ in August 2015.