Stieg Larsson
(August 15, 1954 – November 9, 2004)
Karl Stig-Erland “Stieg” Larsson, a Swedish fan active in the 1970s, is best known for his post-gafiation career as a journalist and crime novelist. His bestselling The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the rest of his Millennium trilogy were published posthumously, starting in 2005, after Larsson died suddenly of a heart attack. By March 2015, the trilogy had sold 80 million copies worldwide.
An avid science fiction reader from a young age, Larsson became active in fandom around 1971, after moving to Stockholm; he became active in the Scandinavian SF Society, of which he was a board member in 1978 and 1979, and chairman in 1980. With Rune Forsgren, he published the fanzine Sfären in 1972; and attended his first science-fiction convention, SF 72. Through the 1970s, Larsson published around 30 fanzine issues.
In his first fanzines, 1972–74, he published a handful of early short stories, while submitting others to other zines. An account of this period in Larsson's life, along with detailed information on his fanwriting and short stories, is included in the biographical essays written by Larsson's friend John-Henri Holmberg in The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of Our Time, by Dan Burstein, Arne De Keijzer and Holmberg, St. Martin's Griffin, 2011.
In early June 2010, manuscripts for two such stories, as well as fanzines with one or two others, were found in the Swedish National Library (to which this material had been donated a few years earlier, mainly by the Alvar Appeltofft Memorial Foundation, which works to further science-fiction fandom in Sweden, and of which Larsson was a co-founder in 1977). This discovery of what was called "unknown" works by Larsson generated considerable publicity.
Larsson had a long relationship, beginning in 1974, with Eva Gabrielsson, with whom he co-edited some fanzines. She published a memoir, There Are Things I Want You to Know About Stieg Larsson and Me, in 2011. Because the two never married, and he died without a valid will, she was left without access to any of his estate, which instead went to his estranged father and brother.
- Fanac (Holmberg) (some issues, with Eva Gabrielsson) [1977–79]
- Fijagh (Larson) (with Rune Forsgren) [mid-1970s]
- The Magic Fan (with Eva Gabrielsson) [1980]
- Sfären (with Rune Forsgren) [1972]
| Person | 1954—2004 |
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