Best-selling Millennium trilogy author Stieg Larsson dies at 50
On this day in 2004 Swedish writer Stieg Larsson dies suddenly of a heart attack at age 50 only months after turning in the manuscripts for three crime thrillersThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nestwhich would later become international best-sellers.Known collectively as the Millennium trilogy the novels feature the characters Mikael Blomkvist a middle-aged journalist and Lisbeth Salander a young pierced and tattooed computer hacker with a troubled past.Larsson who never lived to see his books success died without a will setting off a protracted legal battle for the rights to his work.Larsson was born on August 15 1954 in the town of Skelleftehamm in northern Sweden.
His parents soon relocated to Stockholm in search of better job opportunities leaving their son to be raised by his maternal grandparents.Larsson eventually joined his parents and younger brother in Swedens capital city in the early 1960s.He went on to work as a graphic designer for a Swedish news agency and later became an investigative journalist who focused on exposing right-wing extremist groups.
In 2002 while vacationing with Eva Gabrielsson his longtime live-in companion Larsson began writing what would become the first book in the Millennium series.Over the next two years he completed three manuscripts for a Swedish publisher.There has been speculation that Gabrielsson an architect whom Larsson met at an anti-Vietnam rally in Sweden in 1972 helped him with the books however the exact nature of her collaboration is unknown.
Within months after delivering the manuscripts Larsson a heavy smoker and junk food fanatic died of a massive heart attack after a broken elevator forced him to climb the stairs to his office.In August 2005 the first Millennium novel was published in Sweden under the title Man Som Hatar Kvinnor or Men Who Hate Women.The English-language version of the book would go by the title The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
In May 2006 Flickan Som Lekte Med Elden or The Girl Who Played with Fire was published in Sweden followed one year later by Luftslottet Som Sprangdes or The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest.The books were best-sellers in their authors homeland before going on to become a publishing phenomenon and sell millions of copies around the world.Swedish movie versions of the books have been made and the first English-language Hollywood adaptation is slated for release in late 2011.
Since Larsson died without a will according to Swedish law his estateincluding the rights to his bookswent not to Gabrielsson his partner of some 30 years but to his father and younger brother.Gabrielsson has claimed that Larsson was not close to his father and sibling and a legal battle between the two sides ensued and is ongoing.One thing Gabrielsson does have is Larssons laptop which contains several hundred pages of a fourthand potentially highly valuableMillennium novel.
