Stieg Larsson, My Friend

by Kurdo Baksi

  “No, you’re not. Take 22-year-old Melissa Nordell. She was Swedish and dumped her considerably older boyfriend. He refused to let her go, and in the end attacked her. He raped her and tortured her with a stun gun. Then, to top it all off, he throttled her. When he realized what he had done, he phoned a relative who was a company director or something of the sort. Between them they cleaned up the scene of the murder, wrapped the corpse in chicken wire and dumped it on the island of Ingarö. Do you remember that?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “The boyfriend was jailed for life and his relative got two years for desecration of a grave. The newspapers called it a crime passionnel.”

  “I take your point, Stieg. I understand that the difference between these two murders is purely cosmetic. You don’t need to be Einstein to get that. It’s just that there’s nobody in this country who wants to listen to such arguments right now. Fadime Sahindal’s father murdered her because he couldn’t accept the fact that she insisted on going her own way. Melissa Nordell was murdered by her ex-boyfriend because he couldn’t accept the fact that she was going to leave him. Neither woman was allowed to go her own way. That’s why they were punished.”

  “That’s how we must express ourselves in the media. Exactly like that.”

  For the first time in our conversation Stieg looked pleased. It was as if we both heaved a sigh of mutual relief. Neither of us had looked at the clock yet. It felt as if night had fallen.

  Then Stieg leaned towards me and said, in a voice much more intimate than before, “I’m prepared to do anything at all to get this debate about honour killing on the right track.”

  “Then you can start by writing a really good polemical article,” I said.

  “O.K. But not in my name. I can’t represent the Kurdish point of view. I was born in Skelleftehamn, you were born in Kurdistan. I can support you. Once the debate is over – and that could take more than a year – I’d be happy to edit a book about honour killings.”

  So we had reached a sort of peace, or perhaps rather an armistice. We had a joint assignment, that was how we regarded it. We knew that we wanted to change the way things were, and were willing to do whatever was necessary. It came naturally to us to notice small things which reflected a bigger picture. Such as the fact that women are depicted on Swedish 20- and 50-krona notes, but men are on the 100-, 500- and 1,000-krona ones. Nothing to worry about. Or is it? The Nobel Prize is almost always awarded to a man, Sweden has not yet had a female prime minister, nearly all great inventors and scientists are men, most university professors are men.

  Yet at the same time it’s men who rape, kill and assault others. One woman in five is subjected to rape or attempted rape during her lifetime. One woman in five! Half the population of the world comprises women, but they own only a tiny bit of the world’s resources. Women are hardly represented at all in the corridors of power. No woman has been the U.N. Secretary-General. Everybody knows about Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach. Where are the female composers?

  Men write history. Men write about their male friends. For thousands of years there has been a power structure biased in favour of men, and it is hard to change that.

  For those who wonder why Stieg refused to change the title of his first novel, Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women – it was often changed in translated versions), there you have the answer. Both he and I lived in an environment in which we were constantly reminded of the consequences of this lack of equality, which has always been the norm, and still is. It didn’t matter that we were both men – as far as we were concerned, the system was obviously wrong and we felt obliged to correct it.

  But now we sat in silence, as if we had just completed twelve rounds in a boxing ring. I felt unsure whether I would be able to get up from the little stool in my corner when the bell rang. But there was something gnawing away inside me. I agreed with everything Stieg said, even if he sometimes tended to go over the top. The fact is that he could sound like other brilliant speakers holding forth about ideals of equality at conferences, in seminars, at demonstrations, in books and in the media.

  I ought to have asked him that evening how well he lived up to his feminist visions in the everyday world. When had he last done the laundry? How many of the household chores did he help his partner with? When had he last done the washing up? Whenever I visited him and Eva for dinner he always helped to lay the table, serve the food and contribute to the washing up. I also know that he liked ironing. But it was always obvious that he wasn’t the one in charge of the household. It was Eva who took care of everything, from paying the bills to buying the food.

  Stieg always claimed that he couldn’t cook, although he often promised his friends to serve them roast hare one day. He said that was his signature dish. Unfortunately I was never lucky enough to sample this magnificent meal.

  But perhaps it is unfair to make accusations of this kind. Stieg was hardly ever at home, after all. Maybe it is just another regrettable reminder that theory and practice are rarely as close to one another as we would like to think.

  There was one thing I couldn’t resist bringing up that evening. It was impossible, given the long discussion we had had.

  “Stieg, do you remember a question I asked you some three years ago?”

  “Which question do you mean?”

  “After all you have said this evening, can you explain why there is only one woman on Expo’s seven-strong editorial board? It would be easy to conclude that there are not enough competent women in Sweden who could cope with a job on Expo.”

  He didn’t even try to defend himself.

  “I know. It’s my fault. But the fact is I’m always too stressed to do anything about it.”

  “It’s only a matter of time before the media catch on.”

  He nodded dejectedly.

  “I know, I know.”

  He suddenly looked depressed. That had not been my intention. I was worried, I really was, and I knew the explanation he gave was true. When would he have had time to sort out the gender balance at Expo? How many hours are there in a day?

  As usual, our arguments had come up against a snag. Yet again we had fought a battle in the office, dealt with important questions that needed sorting out, only to find that shortly thereafter we were back to square one.

  The basement windows were just as impenetrably black as before. There was still some time to go before dawn. Nothing outside could be seen clearly from where we were sitting. The world was deaf, vague, unclear and uncertain.

  If the night was a rose, it had just scratched us with one of its sharp thorns.

  9

  The anti-racist as crime novelist

  By the time Stieg reached the age of thirty-six, he could begin to call himself an author. Naturally, it never occurred to him to tell anybody else that, but the fact is that for the last fourteen years of his life he was involved in ten different book projects, usually as editor, but sometimes as author. The only non-fiction to appear under his own name is Överleva deadline – Handbok för hotade journalister (Surviving the Deadlines – A Handbook for Threatened Journalists), published in 2000 by the Swedish Journalists’ Union. The recurring theme in all his technical books is racism, and half of those are about the xenophobic Sweden Democrats.

  Stieg’s first book was Extremhögern (The Extreme Right), a factual study which has become a classic. He wrote it in the spring of 1991 together with the journalist Anna-Lena Lodenius. It was an extremely ambitious survey, 370 pages in length, of organized racism: nothing like it had ever been published in Sweden before. The book comprises twenty chapters, divided into three parts. Geographically it stretches from Sweden to the U.S., and covers the time from the First World War to the present day.

  Cooperation between the two authors was not always smooth. Their attitudes towards their subject matter were too different. Stieg refused to compromise and adopt a neutral approach to neo-Nazis, racists and xenophobes. He kept on using words like madmen, psychopaths, block
heads and idiots. While the writing was in progress, the warrior within him sprang into life once more, and he strode forth looking for trouble. Anna-Lena has told me how difficult it was to work with Stieg. She felt that what these individuals did was more than sufficient to show what kind of people they were, but Stieg wanted to use highly critical or disparaging language to describe intolerant persons and groups. It eventually became impossible for him and Anna-Lena to work together, and after writing the joint foreword to the second edition, their collaboration came to an end.

  I have to say that I understand how Stieg could be difficult to work with while writing. Presumably the only way of completing the book was to allow him to use his own vocabulary. Mind you, now – eighteen years later – it strikes me that he and Anna-Lena Lodenius complemented each other perfectly. Stieg had greater insight into the racist movements and an impressively extensive network. There was no doubt about his expertise when it came to racism. The archive he compiled so laboriously was unique. On the other hand, Anna-Lena was in total command of the full range of journalistic skills.

  The first part of Extremhögern is devoted to the racist and neo-Nazi movements that expanded in Sweden during the 1980s. Part Two, “The International Scene”, depicts the growth of racism in Italy, Great Britain, the U.S., France, Germany, Denmark and Norway, and of right-wing extremism in the rest of Europe. The third and final part deals with political violence and criminality linked to the Swedish far right.

  The book contains several astonishing analyses of the growth of intolerance, especially in Europe. In a number of countries xenophobic parties have regularly been part of coalition governments.

  Unfortunately it is difficult to get hold of a copy today. It never came out in paperback, although the two hardback editions combined sold seven thousand copies. I heard recently that The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest sold two hundred thousand copies in Spain on a single day, 18 July, 2009. There is a certain difference, of course.

  Eight years passed before Stieg became involved in a new book project, Euro-Nat – Ett Europa för antisemiter, etniska krigare och dårfinkar – Sverigedemokraternas internationella nätverk (Euro-Nat – A Europe for Anti-Semites, Ethnic Warriors and Political Crackpots – The Sweden Democrats’ International Network), published in 1999. It is a slim and modest-looking volume with a black and blue cover depicting a map of Europe split down the middle. It looks a bit like a brochure from the local pharmacy. In it, however, Stieg provides a thorough analysis of all the neo-Nazi parties in Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

  His next book, Överleva deadline, the Handbook for Threatened Journalists, came as soon as the following year. It comprises four sections of sixty pages each and is devoted to those who have “the world’s most dangerous career”. He explains ways in which journalists might be threatened, and what help is available. Threats with political overtones, from criminal gangs, angry readers, psychopaths, madmen and opinionated bigots, are analysed in detail. The final part contains an account of journalists under threat all over the world. My copy has a dedication that I shall always treasure: “17 October, 2000. To an obvious source of inspiration in this context, my friend Kurdo”.

  In his next book project Stieg collaborated with somebody he was very fond of, the journalist Mikael Ekman, who worked on Expo and for the television production company Strix. Together they wrote Sverigedemokraterna – Den nationella rörelsen (Sweden Democrats – The National Movement), which appeared in 2001. In the preface they establish that the aim of the book is to present “the history of the Sweden Democrats, the party’s ideological background and its practical activities”.

  I often suggested to Stieg that he ought to write books by himself, but he wouldn’t listen. It was important for him to keep on finding new collaborators. I could never work out why this was: Stieg was easily annoyed and easily hurt, and was always keen on doing everything his own way.

  When he was in the middle of work on a book, he almost became a man possessed. He seemed to have time for nothing else, breathed more heavily, was always in a hurry and smoked non-stop. Moreover, matters on which he and his co-author had agreed could change in the twinkling of an eye. He not infrequently got up on his high horse and rewrote a chapter written by a collaborator. I often saw Stieg change other people’s texts, both Expo articles and chapters of books. He meant well, but not everybody approved of him asserting himself in this way. I was told a number of times that he hadn’t informed the original authors of the changes he had made. That is a pity.

  He would do this because he was convinced that the most important thing was for a text to be perfect, even if a few noses were put out of joint along the way. He told me several times that when it came to texts on racism or anti-racism, he was not prepared to give ground on anything.

  Once again I have that vision of Stieg as a warrior on a warhorse. Every time a new book project was thrown into the balance, I would tell myself that things would turn out well in the end, the collaborators would become friends again once the book was finished and published. I was usually wrong, although Stieg did seem to become less difficult to work with as the years went by.

  No doubt there are several answers to the question why Stieg was always looking for somebody to collaborate with instead of writing his books about intolerance on his own. It would not have been more difficult for him to do so, that is not the reason. Perhaps he wanted to signal to the racists that there were several people keeping an eye on them. Or maybe he wanted to help other writers to move into journalism investigating these disturbing social developments. Of course, it could also be that he was less sure of himself than I and others realized. Perhaps he needed others to push the projects along so that they really were completed. Even a lone wolf might be glad of company now and then.

  The most likely explanation is that he was indifferent to seeing his name on the cover of a book. He really was totally lacking in any kind of narcissistic or exhibitionist tendencies. When a book was finished he preferred his co-author to be the one in the spotlight. Stieg avoided television chat shows like the plague.

  Another reason for his keenness to find collaborators was that if he did so, he would lose less time and energy on any one project and so could soon turn his attention to something new. He also preferred to work with female journalists, because he thought there were not enough women taking part in the public debate about intolerance. Several times he suggested that he and I should write a book together, but I was never interested. I preferred to be his publisher because I had seen how complicated relations often became between him and his collaborators. I was happy not to become involved in confrontations like that.

  But there was another reason. He had ghostwritten so many appeals for which I then received a lot of praise and attention. I didn’t have the heart to carry on stealing the limelight from Stieg. I preferred to have him receive the plaudits.

  Instead, he turned his attention to another book, Debatten om hedersmord (The Honour Killings Debate), of which he was coeditor. It was published in January 2004. Only a few months later he started work on what would be his last work of non-fiction, an anthology on the Sweden Democrats, Sverigedemokraterna från insidan (The Sweden Democrats from the Inside), edited by Richard Slätt, who was Expo’s assistant editor-in-chief. It was no accident that this book appeared in the summer of 2004. That was the year the Sweden Democrats fielded many candidates in the E.U. elections. The book attracted a great deal of attention in xenophobic magazines and home pages.

  The fact is that this was the first book in the Expo family for which Stieg didn’t take the initiative, though he spent a lot of time and enthusiasm extolling it. I think it was important to him that others were displaying an interest in following in his footsteps. Perhaps that was also the feeling that encouraged him to dare to devote more of his energy to his fictional writing. He never hid the fact that he thought it was m
ore fun to create his own characters and invent exciting storylines. All the time I knew Stieg he cherished ambitions to become a writer. The fact that such a lot of people in my circles have always had that dream – which never became reality – meant that I didn’t listen 100 per cent to my friend. He first mentioned the fact that he was writing a novel in the autumn of 1997, and I think that was when he wrote the first chapter of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But I don’t know exactly when he started spending more time on his crime novels. What is clear, however, is that he wrote the best part of them between 2000 and 2003.

  Stieg wanted to be a best-selling author. This desire was not just based on the fact that he wanted to earn money – he wanted to earn money in order to realize his dreams of continuing to publish Expo, and possibly founding an institution that would keep a constant eye on intolerant organizations. With the aid of sound financial backing, Stieg wanted to change the world. He would use the money he earned from his books to help other people. He had no interest in leading a life of luxury – he had no intention of exchanging his black rucksack for a briefcase!

  It also suited his belligerent instincts to tackle big, complicated plots. He always said he found it relaxing to write prose. In the middle of the night he would sit in his office writing while everybody else was in bed. There, in the middle of the night, is where Stieg Larsson the crime novelist was created.

  Stieg Larsson wrote specialized non-fiction books for thirteen years, all of which were well informed and played a major role in contemporary political debate among other things. In addition – not many people know this – Stieg had been mad on science fiction since his teens. No doubt the telescope he was presented with as a twelve-year-old contributed to his enthusiasm. It is possible to trace his fondness for the genre by following links to various Swedish libraries. In his twenties, he and Rune Forsgren were the editors of the S.F. magazine Fijagh, a stencilled publication produced in five issues between 1974 and 1976. Shortly afterwards he became involved in Fanac – Science fiction nyhetstidningen (Fanac – The Science Fiction Newspaper), which he coedited with Eva from 1978 to 1979. For some time in the 1980s he was chairman of the Scandinavian Association for Science Fiction.