Stieg (From Activist to Author)

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Stieg (From Activist to Author)
Jan-Erik Petterson
Translated by Tom Geddes

I have not read the novel or seen the movie on any of the Millenium Trilogy by Swede author Steig Larsson. A friend once offered to send me the three crime thriller novels but I declined as I got no burning interest for novels and I don't want to stack books which I probably not read.  But now that I got a closer look at the journalistic/ activist/ political life of author Stieg Larsson, understood the historical milieu of Sweden through this book, I got interested with the novels. Steig Larsson died of heart attack in 2004 and his books were posthumously published and they became popular and turned into movies, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), The Girl Who Played with Fire (2012) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (2013) and the Swedish versions in 2009.

This book is not really a biography written by Steig's Swede publisher because this book defines the public and political life of Larsson which is full of activism through journalism and the political milieu of Sweden throughout the years after the war until the next millenium wherein Steig became the driving force behind the periodical called Expo. One of the driving reasons why he aimed to write crime novels is that the financial rewards of the novels will see through the continued publication of Expo.

After a few chapters on childhood of Steig, one may get bored with the political mileu of Sweden since the post war but one has to sustain this since as I understood they all became the backdrop of the novels too. But then, when you are about to close the book because you're bored, you will reach the interesting times when Steg Larsson was most active politically in Sweden, his dreams and aspiratons and his cause, until the time he was writing the novels and all. He was 50 when he suddenly died. 

I think I am ready for the Millenium Trilogy after knowing the real-life causes of the author which were very admirable and inspiring. Now, I hope the trilogy delivers his goods as I expected after reading this book.           

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