Actually, I have an advance to write a book about it myself. . But if we really understand her, she will cease to be interesting. I can’t stand it. Dangerous times all round, then. That was what people used to call him.”. Even though he created them, they feel like mine. There was this period, the first time, when I was afraid — because there were headlines, especially in my home country of Sweden, “Could he do this? What a disgrace it would be if I wrote a bad book. On Larsson’s death, his partner of 32 years, Eva Gabrielsson, discovered that because they had never married and he had died intestate, she was not, according to Swedish law, entitled to inherit his estate. None of us did, perhaps because he used a pseudonym.” (Thanks to Larsson’s efforts to expose the extreme right, at least one serious attempt was made on his life, with the result that he took care to protect his identity in his political writings, and his whereabouts.). The original books, with their … . We couldn’t be inside of his head. But I also had a quantity complex — his books were so thick! “No. Tension is growing. But he saw what was coming. I respect writers who can write the same book all over again, but I couldn’t. But a growing number of people are feeling scared, and they hate the [intellectual] elite, who say it is good to look after minorities. And there’s so much bashing of journalists, isn’t there? I said to Zlatan, ‘We’re going to have write this like a novel.’ Luckily, he understood. I think that was important for them, because they really want — and I think we really need — a hero like Lisbeth Salander that will go on in a franchise. “Look, here they are, trailed on the front of the daily.” He shows me a cover, the banner including his name taking up most of its top half. He hated them. But once they’d read something, we could all begin to believe in the book.”, Lagercrantz isn’t the first author to take over a famous franchise like this. Photograph: Olle Nordell for the Observer, avid Lagercrantz, wild of eye and slightly jerky of limb, darts to his desk, which is tucked behind a curved wall right in the middle of his Stockholm flat, and returns waving a couple of copies of. “Yes. “It got a whole new generation reading. These do not influence editorial content, though Meredith may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. I’ve said it in interviews — it made headlines in Stockholm that say, “Never again!” But you never know. He grins. All these kids from the suburbs, who’d never even been close to a library, started reading it. And even though it is absolutely exhausting, because there’s a craziness about these books, everything is so much more friendly now. His subject, the son of a Muslim Bosnian father and a Catholic Croatian mother, grew up in a notorious part of Malmö, a ghetto by any other name. DAVID LAGERCRANTZ is an acclaimed Swedish author and journalist. But with Blomkvist, who is fuzzier around the edges, he felt a greater sense of freedom: “His main purpose is to be this politically correct contrast to the rebel, Lisbeth. Is he now trembling at the thought of what the critics will make of his attempt to breathe new life into Lisbeth Salander, avenging angel extraordinaire? But this time, after the first book was really a success, it was easier to do [the second], of course. I say that I have two complexes from Stieg Larsson. I could see that Saint George was really the villain, and Lisbeth Salander certainly could see her father in him, and her mother in the dragon, as the victim. It’s nuts. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Now that you’re two books into this project, let’s talk about your experience: How has it felt to take on this series and this iconic character?DAVID LAGERCRANTZ: I was scared to death when I first wrote The Girl in the Spider’s Web. And why he thinks Claire Foy will make a great Lisbeth Salander. Being terrified, though, wasn’t only a bad thing. But what will the fans make of it? “I realised this was real, and then something happened to me: a fever. It’s their movie, but I talk to [the producers] all the time. We had code words, and we didn’t email anything; even my editor worked on a computer without an internet connection. “I was thinking: this is not me. What are your thoughts on that casting?I think it’s absolutely fantastic, actually. David Lagercrantz will write one final book in the Millennium series - to be released in 2019. We have too many male characters, don’t we? It’s still far more equal for women. Norstedts is earning money, of course, but it’s a good publishing house; it has Nobel prize-winners. .Without ever becoming pastiche, the book is a respectful and affectionate homage to the originals.. -- Mark Lawson, Guardian. David Lagercrantz, a controversial choice for continuing the Salander-Blomkvist series. “My new agent represented the Larsson estate. I tell him that, for all that we in Britain are now thoroughly obsessed both with its crime fiction (Henning Mankell, Camilla Läckberg, Karin Alvtegen among others) and with TV series such as The Bridge, in which horrible things occur with alarming regularity in freezing cold Malmö, most of us still think of the country as a place where equality comes as standard, and where every apartment is equipped with good lighting and at least one piece of fine mid-century furniture (this is certainly true of his place). That’s beautiful. We have to make them heroes again, as they were when I grew up — the Woodward and Bernstein era. Did he play a part too? When he and the estate of Stieg Larsson agreed in September 2013 that Lagercrantz would write the fourth novel in the series that began with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Larsson, in case you’ve been off visiting another planet, died of a heart attack at the age of 50 in 2004, before his trilogy of bestselling novels had even been published – half of him wondered if anyone would care. Now it’s used in schools. Once they’d both read it – the global stakes are spectacularly huge, 80m copies of the series having been sold around the world – Lagercrantz was duly anointed the man who would continue what Larsson started. I am of that group of readers who felt relieved and excited when the fourth book, and the first by Lagercrantz, brought about the prospect of a continuation of Lisbeth Salander's story with a quality of writing not too far removed from the original trilogy. His project, however, is not without controversy. Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25. So then I started reading writers who used an urban language, like Irvine Welsh, and that helped me to make the book more real.”, Its impact on Ibrahimovic’s reputation – fiery and ill-disciplined, he had often been accused of un-Swedish behaviour by a press who longed for a polite Björn Borg-style football icon – was transformative. I like a riddle, a puzzle. Growing up, we always had famous authors in our home. It’s in all the anthologies. "Maybe I'll write another book, maybe I won't, but I've found my own writing. I grew up with the idea that this suffering made our family even more noble – though I was also taught to despise that nobility. So, you’ve said the next book, after the The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye, will be your last in the Millennium series.Yes, it will. “The ones I looked at before I started writing were the worst books I’d ever read. Claire Foy is going to play Lisbeth in the film adaptation of your first Millennium novel, The Girl in the Spider’s Web. She loathes the English translations of the novels; Christopher MacLehose, she says, fatally prettified the original dialogue. He and Ibrahimovic couldn’t have come from more different backgrounds, and perhaps this helped the project: he struggled to get inside his head. “I thought they might just yawn. The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz, translated by George Goulding, is published by MacLehose Press (£19.99). Lagercrantz has constructed an elegant plot around different concepts of intelligence . She’s great, vulnerable in many ways because she’s a young queen, but also when she had to be authoritative, she was. I’m sorry this makes her unhappy or angry or whatever she is, but she is just one person, and the readers are millions. The tolerant side is so beautiful. It’s unnecessary. She had a sadistic psychiatrist. And then I saw something astonishing. . “Of course, they were all nervous. Those dinners… My poor mother. And then I add new characters that are mine. Was this intentional? Democracy is under threat all over, so it’s so important to have good journalists, and to have people also pay for good journalism. David Lagercrantz has revealed that he penned The Girl in the Spider's Web while in a "biopolar, manic depressive" state. WARNING: There are some spoilers ahead from Eye for an Eye. She, in turn, is now the target of the Spiders, a bunch of cyber-gangsters. What does he mean by famous, exactly? Because in many ways, she’s a feminist fighter. I felt I had to do it. As my wife says, when I base my characters on parts of myself, they’re always too depressive. Spread the love with EW's Valentine's Day gift guide, David Lagercrantz took up the late Stieg Larsson’s mantle. Honestly, there’s never been anything like this in Sweden for a book before. But working as a footballer’s ghostwriter must also have felt extremely transgressive at times. “Oh, I idolised him. He’s a reporter, too, only maybe he’s a bit more stable than I am. It goes without saying that Lagercrantz’s book is, in one sense, entirely critic-proof: the pre-orders alone are, he tells me, enough to make the mind boggle. Gabrielsson, who spent some years fighting the family through her lawyer, mostly without success, for what she regarded as her rightful share of the estate, has never been happy with the way it has looked after Larsson’s work. In 2015 The Girl in the Spider’s Web, his continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, became a worldwide best seller, and it was announced that Lagercrantz would write two further novels in the series. I was absolutely obsessed. Instead, everything would go to Larsson’s father, Erland, and his brother, Joakim. David Lagercrantz, who continued Stieg Larsson's Milllennium series after the latter's death in 2004, has stated that he will write just one more book in the series, to be released in 2019. When the new novel opens, Lisbeth, misfit hacker, and Mikael Blomkvist, crusading leftwing journalist, have not seen each other for a while. An actor-writer: that’s what I am.”, All the same, he didn’t bite immediately. We want to understand her just enough.Just enough, yes. The original Millennium trilogy author Stieg Larsson in Hong Kong, 1987. "Last time I felt utter and total fear. And when we have a character like Lisbeth Salander, an extreme character, we need a more normal character as a sidekick: That’s Mikael Blomkvist. Actually, I’m a bit embarrassed. Two years ago, David Lagercrantz took up the late Stieg Larsson’s mantle to continue the Millennium book series, which started with the international best-seller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Lagercrantz wrote I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic , the memoir of the footballer, which in its Amazon description is compared to both Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. What has it been like to meet the readers over the years?I think it has been fantastic. It’s a classic here.”. David Lagercrantz says this is his final book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium series. Written by Swedish novelist and journalist David Lagercrantz, this is the much anticipated continuation to one of the best-loved crime series of the last decade. It was just pure passion. Because journalists are actually revealing the injustice, the corruption, the lies. She will always be some sort of enigma, but you should always try to understand an enigma. David Lagercrantz is a Swedish journalist and best-selling novelist. But for me, it’s so important to move on, because I develop myself when I write something new. Here he talks about the weight of the world’s anticipation – and his own tragic family history, British readers lost in translations as foreign literature sales boom, The Girl in the Spider’s Web review – a controversial addition to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, David Lagercrantz: ‘I read that Stieg Larsson used to work through the night, so I sat up late too’, ‘If I’d had any moral problems with this, I wouldn’t have done it’: David Lagercrantz in his flat in Sodermälm, the area of Stockholm in which Stieg Larsson and his characters also lived. I mean ever. Now I have a good story for the third one. But I understood early on that I couldn’t go into writing literary essays or work for Dagens Nyheter. It sounds private, but in Sweden everyone knows about it. But then, that December, we announced it to the world and the world exploded. I know that many feel that David Lagercrantz’s style has deviated considerably from that of Stieg Larsson. Should he do this?” Because people were upset and afraid that I would set out to destroy his readership. There are two sides to Sweden. Other people have to decide whether or not I’m a good writer, but I do have the ability to write in different styles. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. from £30.62. I was writing a novel, a love story, but I was a bit fed up. She feels like mine, and I’m braver with her, [so I can] add to her mythology and add darkness to her, so they really feel like mine. They started even before The Girl in the Spider’s Web was published because they read it, you know, secretly. Blomkvist has been contacted by a Swedish scientist, Professor Balder, who has a horrifying tale to tell – a story he desperately wants Blomkvist to publish. So in the beginning, they were quite tense, and I was nervous. When I was depressed, I did feel that I could take the other Lagercrantz way. Offers may be subject to change without notice. I’m an author who likes assignments, who needs suggestions, ideas I would never have thought of otherwise – then something happens inside my alien head. “I’m neurotic, and I care,” he says. I think part of the reason this book was such a success was because I didn’t do it because of the money or anything. “Sometimes I write it down: what would your father think of this?”, Will he write another book about Salander and Blomkvist? So we will see that. © Copyright 2021 Meredith Corporation. But then I went in and tried to see it with Lisbeth Salander’s eyes. The… More about David Lagercrantz How much does Lagercrantz believe that Sweden has changed? And at least when I was out talking, I felt so much love from the readers: “She’s back! Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist as Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist in the 2009 Swedish film version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. “It’s all a question of money.”. I had a long lunch with them yesterday, and they were scouting to shoot a bit in Stockholm and Berlin and Prague as well. That meant he was despised by some. Lagercrantz pulls a miserable face (his natural mode is, by the way, frantically smiley). The Swedish title is Mannen som sökte sin skugga (literal English translation: The Man Who Hunted his Shadow ) and the English title is The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye . Fear can also get you going, it can give you energy, the way it does if you’re a journalist and it’s 10 minutes before your deadline.”, He knew that it was vital that he did not mess around with the character of Lisbeth, whom Larsson had drawn very clearly. When you have a father like that, you do. And then I got this advice to go into the big cathedral in Old Town in Stockholm. Click here to order a copy for £15.99, Lagercrantz was already the author of the bestselling book in Swedish history – his ghostwritten memoir of footballer Ibrahimovic – when he was asked to write a fourth thriller in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series. David Lagercrantz will be in conversation with Mark Lawson at Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road, London, at 7pm on 4 September. Very posh. Lagercrantz was tapped to continue writing the Lisbeth Salander series in 2013, and his series installments (The Girl in the Spider’s Web and The … David Lagercrantz was acclaimed as one of Sweden’s bestselling authors long before he was contracted to write the fourth instalment in the Millennium series … his continuation, while never formulaic, is a cleaner and tighter read than the originals. “Lagercrantz is a very famous name in Sweden,” he says, uncertainly. I’m going to be away from home for weeks.”. But I get fantastic suggestions from publishers nearly every week now, and perhaps I like the feeling of doing something new and feeling insecure. Sherlock Holmes needed a Dr. Watson. He wasn’t, or so he insists, even remotely prepared for this level of interest. What people need to remember is that for every Zlatan Ibrahimovic, there are 10,000 others we’ve crushed just because they don’t fit in.”, Determined to capture the footballer’s formative exclusion, Lagercrantz realised there was no way he was going to turn out a bog-standard football book. Very often, respected authors are like that: they write the same kind of book again and again. I think about all the time how she’s really the traumatized kid who society tried to crush, but instead of getting weaker, she just got stronger. What about his father? “Apart from my family, it’s the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me,” says Lagercrantz. I was captured by the latest high octane tale of genius hacker Lisbeth, evil twin Camilla, and journalist Mikael Blomkvist. And she’s not just fighting for justice in general: I think what gets her going is when she sees [the abuse she suffered] repeat again, when she sees women that are suppressed, when she sees the old trauma of her mother with the evil father, suppressed and raped and abused. It sounds like it’s going to be beautiful.Hopefully. . It is a series I like and am sad that #6 will probably be the last David Lagercrantz will write. In the first book, awful things happen to him, and he just takes a shower, and that’s it. How do you feel like Lisbeth has evolved in your hands?I think I add darkness to her. “I didn’t exactly see them on the streets, but I was a bit crazy, I think.” Only when he handed over the first 100 pages to his editors did he finally calm down. Every Swedish schoolkid has been there. He is best known as an author of Zlatan Ibrahimović's biography "I am Zlatan Ibrahimović", as well as for the sequel to Stieg Larsson's bestselling Millennium trilogy about troubled but fierce computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist, which went on sale in 25 countries today. Seven, eight…. Four, five, six… So, too, does an image of the aforementioned desk. The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye is to be the English title of the second book in the continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series by Swedish writer David Lagercrantz.. EW caught up with Lagercrantz by phone during his book tour to discuss what it’s like to continue someone else’s world-famous work, why he’s choosing to walk away, and why we need characters like Lisbeth and journalist Mikael Blomkvist now more than ever. My sister [Marika Lagercrantz] is a famous actor here, and when I was young I dreamed of being one too. One, two, three… A photograph of his face flashes by. Only when he met with the team at Larsson’s publisher, Norstedts, did he have a change of heart. I was scared. I didn’t even know his name. I understand her. The Swedish author has written the sequel to … My father despised those who wrote only to sell. Now they’re in parliament, for God’s sake. Lagercrantz told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that he was writing a follow-up to The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which topped book charts around the world and has sold 3.5m copies to … “The noir came out of the old Sweden,” he says. I had to be faithful to Larsson’s work, but I also had to be true to myself.”, Lagercrantz, a 52-year-old journalist-turned-novelist who is most famous in Sweden for having ghostwritten a controversial autobiography of the footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic (of which more later), landed his latest gig when he changed agent. “I wrote my diaries for it,” he says, rather breathlessly, plonking himself back down beside me on a sofa. But Lagercrantz has no idea if his first Salander book will be his last. And this lady who was just standing there praying, as if she didn’t care at all, could represent sort of the society that didn’t care, didn’t do anything when her mother was abused and raped. In Sweden, every paper sent out newsflashes. It was more fun, and I was braver! Now Norstedts Förlag have announced that the Swedish author David Lagercrantz will write the fourth book in the series, which will be published by Quercus in the UK. .Without ever becoming pastiche, the book is a respectful and affectionate homage to the originals. There was this great guilt about privilege. But she has to feel like mine, because otherwise I couldn’t write the book. I won't be Stieg Larsson my whole life." I’d never felt anything like it before. And I thought to myself, “Of course she was thinking about the dragon — that one day, the dragon will rise and take revenge.” That was a key moment for me. Having read it – speedily, and in strictly controlled conditions – I would say that it is as good, or as bad, as any of Larsson’s efforts, depending on how you felt about those in the first place. Because we all watch these series on TV, but The Crown was sort of my all-time high. Lagercrantz has constructed an elegant plot around different concepts of intelligence . But deep down, there is still something really wounded. You’re probably thinking the way Lisbeth thinks now.Of course. It’s vital for democracy, actually. He is the author of three books in the Millennium series: The Girl who in the Spider’s Web, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, and The Girl Who Lived Twice.. DAVID LAGERCRANTZ is an acclaimed Swedish author and journalist. My wife is more nervous than me. I think I might be addicted to that.”, He isn’t saying what his father would have made of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, but he knows exactly into what category he would have put its author. . They had to. “Yes. Like them, and the man who created them, Lagercrantz lives in Södermalm, a bohemian part of the city that was once working-class but is now increasingly gentrified, and thanks to this the characters were in his mind even when he left his apartment. Explore books by David Lagercrantz with our selection at Waterstones.com. We had a lovely lunch and a glass of wine, and she came up with it. After this, he opens the Sunday edition’s culture section, in which the journals finally appeared, and briskly turns its pages. My father wrote a book about his family [Min Första Krets], and he described their suffering with such respect that they became Christ figures.