Swedish Crime Writers Very Successful in UK and USA
By Peter on Jan 10, 2008 in Crime Books, Swedish crime book, The World of Books
The Swedes are invading the marked for crime and mystery in the UK and USA, and elsewhere in Europe as well. Sweden has a large - and even fast growing -number of excellent crime writers, and many of them have been translated into English during the last decade or so. Norwegian and Danish crime is increasingly internationalized as well, but not quite as fast or quite as successfully as Swedish crime.Â
The most well-known among the Swedish writers are Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo (who in a way were the fore-runners of the current wave of writers), Karin Alvtegen, Asa Larsson, Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, Hakan Nesser, Liza Marklund, Helene Tursten, Kjell Eriksson, Mari Jungstedt, Inger Frimansson and Ake Edwardson. These are all wonderful, very talented writers. They have all been successful in Sweden before they were launched internationally.
Some of them, like Sjowall & Wahloo and Mankell, are already established as “stars” on the international crime book scene. Others, like Alvtegen, Marklund, Eriksson, Jungstedt, Tursten, and Nesser, have more recently become noted internationally. In addition, Jan Guillou is well established internationally as a writer of thrillers and historical novels. Others are on their way as well!
Why Swedes write such excellent crime and mystery, is hard to say. One reason may be that the Swedes love to read crime, and that there is considerable demand for crime literature in Sweden. Apart from that, who knows? Maybe the Swedish publishing houses are better than others at aiding, advising and developing talented writers? Whatever the reason may be, the Swedes seem to have some secret formula or some invisible competitive advantage in crime writing.
Personally, I don’t really focus all that much on “Why?”, back rather lean back and look forward to more excellent Swedish crime novels. Lots of them, hopefully!
– Peter
You must be logged in to post a comment.