Anders Hellberg refers to a period of time when he and Larsson worked together at Swedish news agency TT in the late seventies and early eighties.
”The language was weak, the word order was often incorrect, sentence constructions were simple and the syntax was sometimes completely mad,” writes Hellberg, implying that such a weak writer could not possibly have authored the Millenium trilogy.
Hellberg suspects the best-selling books could in fact have been written by Larsson’s common law spouse Eva Gabrielsson. Gabrielsson has dismissed the idea in a statement through the Swedish daily Expressen.
Eva Gedin, Larsson’s publisher at Norstedts Agency, repudiates Hellberg’s ideas.
”To claim that Stieg did not write the Millenium trilogy is just nonsense,” she says.
Gedin says the debate on whether Larson was a bad writer or not – a discussion reinforced by Kurdo Baksi’s recently released book ”Min vän Stieg Larsson” (”My Friend Stieg Larson”) – has been blown out of proportion.
”I can only comment on Stieg as a crime novelist. When he came to our publishing house he was a very mature writer and his scripts were thoroughly worked through.”
Stieg Larsson’s brother Joakim Larsson, who is in the midst of a well-publicised inheritance quarrel with Eva Gabrielsson, says the Dagens Nyheter article made him angry but hardly surprised.
”It’s just another nonsense article about Stieg that I won’t waste my energy on. Nowadays my brother is a national icon and there are many claiming to have known him who try to live off his reputation.”
Baksi has been under fire since the release of his book, where he describes the Millenium author’s journalistic methods as ethically questionable. Yet he feels misunderstood in Hellberg’s article.
”I have not been quoted correctly. First of all, I never said I was a better writer than Stieg. Maybe I was better than him att handling quick, short journalistic texts, but I am absolutely not a better writer. Anders Hellberg has used our conversation to create a perspective that I just can’t accept.”
Anders Hellberg is surprised when these comments by Baksi are forwarded to him. There simply was no room for misinterpretation, Hellberg says.
”Sadly I was unable to record the conversation, but I have written down exactly what Kurdo Baksi said. If he doesn’t want to stand for it now, that’s his business.
In Hellberg’s article, Baksi is quoted as saying: “It is still a mystery to me how he could write these books.”
But Baksi says he was not referring to the quality of Stieg Larsson’s writing.
”The question for me has always been how Stieg found the time to write the Millenium trilogy when he was involved in so many other things. I write about that a lot in my book.”
But in interviews you have said Stieg Larsson was a mediocre journalist?
”I still say Stieg Larsson wasn’t a brilliant journalist, but he was a brilliant author. He showed it both in his non-fiction books and in his novels.”
Journalist and author Anna-Lena Lodenius, who wrote the book ”Extremhögern” (The Extreme Right) together with Larsson, says she never served as an editor on any of Larsson’s news articles. But she has looked at a lot of his journalistic work with a critical eye, she says.
”It’s possible that the dry style of TT wasn’t his thing. But of course he could write,” she says.
Lodenius and Larsson worked together during the early nineties. They lost touch during the last few years before he died, and she says it took her long before she dared to read his Millenium books.
”I knew how painful it would be. When I did read the Millenium triogy I clearly heard his voice. I recognized his language and I found some of his favourite words in the books, the same words that I always crossed out when we wrote together. Like everyone else he had certain expressions that were characteristic of his writing. There is no doubt that it’s the same Stieg that I used to work with.”
Kurdo Baksi is also certain that Stieg Larsson wrote the Millenium books on his own, but he is not surprised by Anders Helberg’s theories. Theories like these are common in the history of literature.
”Shakespeare’s works were written nearly four hundred years ago, and the discussion on who the real author was is still there. Many say it was his wife. But in Stieg’s case, he was the actual writer,” says Baksi.
”His very special style, which is apparent in everything he ever wrote, is clearly there in all of the Millenium books. My only point regarding his style was that it was better suited for novels than for news articles.”
Eva Gabrielsson tells the Swedish daily Expressen that her only involvement in the crime trilogy was proofreading and discussions with her partner. Kurdo Baksi paints a similar picture. As he understands it, the spouse helped Larsson with various portrayal of settings.
”She was an architect and was able to provide knowledge on real estates and the descriptions of people’s homes, like for example the flat where (Millenium character) Lisbeth Salander lives.”
Translated by Oliver Grassman