Stieg Larsson, My Friend

Stieg Larsson is best known — all over the world now — as the author of the Millennium trilogy, but during his career as a journalist he was a critical protagonist in the battle against racism and for democracy in Sweden and Europe, and one of the founders of the anti-fascist magazine *Expo*. Kurdo Baksi first met Larsson in 1992; it was the beginning of an intense friendship, and a fruitful but challenging work relationship. Now, six years after Larsson’s death, Baksi has written about his close friend. This is a candid and rounded memoir in which Baksi answers the questions a multitude of Larsson’s readers and admirers have already asked: about his upbringing; the recurring death threats from neo-Nazi groups; his insomnia; his prodigious capacity for work on causes about which he was passionate; his feminism — so evident in his novels — and his dogmatism. But Baksi also reveals concern about Stieg’s well-being, and his uncompromising side, which sometimes got him into trouble. What was he like as a colleague? Who provided the inspiration for his now-immortal characters (Baksi is one of the few who appears as himself)? Who was Lisbeth Salander? *Stieg Larsson, My Friend* is an eloquent and troubling insight into the life of a man who has rapidly become one of the world’s bestselling authors.