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Liza Marklund
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Eva Elisabeth "Liza" Marklund (born 9 September 1962 in Pålmark near Piteå, Norrbotten, Sweden) is a Swedish journalist and crime writer.
Most of her books feature newspaper journalist Annika Bengtzon. Some readers consider her style of language to be influenced by her career writing for evening tabloids.
Marklund is a Unicef ambassador and co-owner of Sweden's third largest publishing house, Piratförlaget. She also writes articles for the Swedish newspaper, Expressen.
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Encyclopedia
Eva Elisabeth "Liza" Marklund (born 9 September 1962 in Pålmark near Piteå, Norrbotten, Sweden) is a Swedish journalist and crime writer.
Most of her books feature newspaper journalist Annika Bengtzon. Some readers consider her style of language to be influenced by her career writing for evening tabloids.
Marklund is a Unicef ambassador and co-owner of Sweden's third largest publishing house, Piratförlaget. She also writes articles for the Swedish newspaper, Expressen. Her novels have been published in thirty languages. En plats i solen is her eleventh book and most recent one.
Marklund lives in Spain with her husband Mikael.
Literary career
Since her debut in 1995, Liza Marklund has written eight crime novels and co-authored two documentary novels with Maria Eriksson and one non-fiction book about female leadership with Lotta Snickare. Marklund's crime novels featuring crime reporter Annika Bengtzon have become international bestsellers. Her first best-seller was the 1998 crime novel Sprängaren (The Bomber), winner of the "Poloni Prize" (Polonipriset) 1998 for "Best Swedish Crime Novel by a Female Writer" and "The Debutant Prize" (Debutantpriset) 1998 for "Best First Novel of the Year" in Sweden. According to the American online magazine Publishing Trends, her novels were among the most sold in the world in 2002 and 2003, Prime Time ranking #13 and The Red Wolf ranking #12. In Scandinavia and Germany, her documentary novels have become the center of a heated controversy.
The Annika Bengtzon series
The Annika Bengtzon series at present consists of eight books. The framework of the Annika Bengtzon series is crime reporter Annika's hectic life, at a bustling tabloid called Kvällspressen in Stockholm, Sweden. Her conflict lies in combining motherhood with her career ambitions.
Starting with The Bomber, in which Annika is already a deft professional, the story then moves back in time several years, to the start of her career and the meeting with her future husband Thomas. By the fifth installment The Red Wolf, the reader is back in the present. Books 6, 7 and 8: Nobels's Last Will, Lifetime and A Place in the Sun, together make up a trilogy, with recurring characters and themes and plots linked to each other.
Chronology
The Annika Bengtzon series has not been written in the order in which the events in the novels take place. The chronological order is as follows:
- Studio 69 (1999) – takes place eight years before the action of The Bomber
- Paradise (2000) – a direct continuation of Studio 69
- Prime time (2002) – the action occurs between Paradise and The Bomber
- The Bomber (1998)
- Den röda vargen (2003) – an independent story which picks up from the end of The Bomber
- Nobels testamente (2006) – takes place some months after The Red Wolf
- Livstid (2007) – a direct sequel to "Nobels testamente"
- "En plats i solen" (2008) - a direct sequel to "Livstid"
The last three novels can be considered as a trilogy, within the series.
The Maria Eriksson series
Marklund's literary debut came in 1995 with Gömda En Sann Historia (Buried Alive - A True Story), a story about a Swedish woman who was abused by her immigrant boyfriend and forced into hiding. It was re-worked and re-released in 2000 and the new edition became one of the best selling books of all times in Sweden. According to the author, it is one of only two books by her that has sold 800,000 copies in Sweden.
The pseudonym used for the main character in the series is "Maria (or Mia) Eriksson", who is also listed as a co-author of the first editions of the two books in the series. The abuser, an Arab man who had arrived in Sweden as a refugee, has no name in the book but is referred to simply as "the man with the dark eyes" (mannen med de mörka ögonen). He is the father of a child that "Maria Eriksson" takes with her into hiding.
The book made "Maria Eriksson" a celebrity in Sweden and her abuse case was discussed in the Swedish Parliament (Riksdagen). "Maria Eriksson" also made several newspaper interviews and televised appearances on behalf of the publishing house over the years, always in disguise.
"The man with the dark eyes" is the antagonist also in Asyl Den Sanna Fortsättningen på Gömda (Asylum Granted - A True Story), the second book in the documentary series, published 9 years later. The second book tells the story of how the abuser forced the woman and her new family to flee abroad. They left Sweden for South America and then spent five years in the United States, attempting to establish asylum. According to an article by Marklund published in the Swedish evening press, "Maria Eriksson" submitted her application as a victim of domestic violence and gender-based abuse, using quotes from the Koran and from the books Wife Abuse in the Muslim Community by Kamran Memon and Unproteced by the Swedish Welfare State by Amy Elman och Maud Eduards as part of the argument presented to the court. Marklund writes in the press and on her web site that "Maria Eriksson" was granted asylum on February 25, 2003.
Controversy
In December 2008, a book critical of the facts presented in the Maria Ericsson series was published by Swedish journalist Monica Antonsson, containing a 500-page story of how she followed the paper-trail left behind as the "Maria Eriksson" case wound its way through the social services system and the Swedish courts. In her investigative exposé, Antonsson used interviews with "Maria Eriksson's" relatives and former neighbors, social workers, the abuser, landlords in apartment buildings where the couple had lived, as well as the Swedish ex-boyfriend of "Maria Eriksson" and their grown-up son whom she had left behind in Sweden at the age of six. The conclusion drawn by Antonsson is that crucial facts about the "Maria Eriksson" case have been left out by Marklund, including the hospitalization of "the man with the dark eyes" after aggravated assault by "Maria Eriksson's" Chilean husband, who was convicted and imprisoned for one year due to the assault. She also argues that many aspects of the story lack factual basis and are either considered by Antonsson to be exaggerations or pure fabrications. In Buried Alive "the man with the dark eyes" is portrayed as a psychopath and a war criminal who had participated in massacres in Lebanon and was part of a gang of Muslim refugees who terrorized "Maria Eriksson's" Swedish hometown and threatened her life for more than a decade. The book was presented as factually correct in newspaper articles by Marklund and was used as evidence that "Maria Eriksson" did not get enough protection and financial support from the Swedish government in order to avoid attacks on the family. Antonsson argues instead that the flight from the hometown was done in fear of revenge after the assault on "the man with the dark eyes" but that the family was not attacked nor threatened and followed by anyone. In the wake of the publicity that followed Antonsson's allegations that the books are literary hoaxes, "the man with the dark eyes" and his wife, and the Swedish ex-boyfriend of "Maria Eriksson" and his wife, along with the son they raised after "Maria Eriksson" had left the country, decided to go public in support of the research presented by Antonsson. "Maria Eriksson", who now lives with her new husband in the United States under a new identity, has filed a complaint against the journalist with the Chancellor of Justice for allegedly having revealed her old identity and violated her right to anonymity as a source.
The books in the "Maria Ericsson" series have also been criticized as expressions of Nordic Orientalism for their use of deprecatory clichés about Arabic culture and for confirming and promoting xenophobic and islamophobic impulses against immigrants in the Swedish society. According to the critics, the racist stereotyping in the books is reinforced by the fact that the ethnic background of the man who represents evil has been kept as Lebanese, while the man who represents goodness, stability and security has been re-made from a Chilean immigrant in reality into a blond, blue-eyed Swede from Norrland in the book.
In response to the criticism, Marklund has stated that she is unable to discuss the choices made in regards to the characters in the book because of promises of confidentiality, but although some changes were made to make identification more difficult, she considers the bulk of the story to be factually correct and neither exaggerated nor deceptive. She has further stated that Buried Alive is the truth from "Maria Eriksson's" perspective and was never meant to be a journalistic or objective truth. In the foreword of the book, she wrote that the book is a true story supported by hundreds of official documents from the courts and social services, etc. In defense against Antonsson's allegations, she has again stated that her story is supported by official documents. She has also written that she did not know of the aggravated assault committed by "Mia Eriksson's" Chilean husband against the father of "Mia Eriksson's" first child and that she read about for it the first time in Monica Antonsson's book. According to Antonsson, the court records she refers to in her book show that the charge against "Mia Eriksson's" Chilean husband was changed from attempted murder to aggravated assault due to the impulsive nature of the crime. The court records, according to Antonsson, also state that there had been considerable prior harassment from the injured man, but she added that it appears the only evidence of prior harassment presented at the trial consisted of testimony from the defendant and "Maria Eriksson". Marklund has stated that if Antonsson's information about the records is correct, then the court's decision confirms that the family was the target of harassment before "Maria Eriksson's" ex-boyfriend was driven over by her husband and that this in fact shows the family's vulnerable position.
The controversy over the fictional and factual elements of Buried Alive - A True Story has been compared to the controversy erupting over the embellishments of central details in James Frey's memoir. Several complaints have been filed with the Swedish Consumer Ombudsman, KO (Konsumentombudsmannen), against the two publishers Bonniers and Piratförlaget, alleging misleadning advertising of the book, and a German publisher has delayed the German release of the book Asylum - the True Continuation of Buried Alive in order to remove the word "true" from the cover and add a description of the controversy as an foreword to the book.
Classification
Gömda (Buried Alive) was initially released by Bonniers in 1995 and marketed under the category "autobiography/biography" in the publishing industry's catalogue. It was re-worked and re-released by Piratförlaget in 2000 as Buried Alive - A True Story and marketed as a "documentary novel", a term used by Piratförlaget also for the edition published by Bonniers. The re-release by Piratförlaget was published after Marklund's break-through with her second book The Bomber, which won her "The Debutant Prize" (Debutantpriset) of 1998 for "Best First Novel of the Year". Before the re-release, Marklund gave an interview in the press about her success with The Bomber, where she described Buried Alive as a non-fiction book (fackbok). Marklund's debut book was originally also classified as non-fiction by the Swedish National Bibliography (Nationalbibliografin) and Swedish Library Service (Bibliotekstjänst).
In January 2009, the Swedish National Bibliography and the public libraries of Sweden reclassified all editions as fiction due to questions raised about the factual nature of the book. The classification of Asylum - the True Continuation of Buried Alive was not altered as it had been classified as fiction from the very beginning.
A spokesperson and part-owner of the Piratförlaget, Jan Guillou, has told the press that the company regrets that the book was marketed as "a true story" and that "based on a true story" would have been better. In Expressen, the evening tabloid where Marklund works, another part-owner of the publishing company, Ann-Marie Skarp, has stated that readers could not have been fooled by the label "true story" because, she argued, intelligent readers understand that the book is a novel based on reality and that it is not meant to be a biography.
Kerstin Angelin at the initial publisher, Bonnier Alba, has also commented in the press on the controversy by saying: "The storyline, the bulk of the story, must be correct for it to be called a true story. However, for various reasons one may not want to expose individuals with name and professions, out of concern for them. It is perfectly reasonable that not every detail is true."
Bibliography
The Annika Bengtzon novels
- Sprängaren (1998) (The Bomber, trans. Kajsa von Hofsten, 2000)
- Studio sex (1999) (Studio 69, trans. Kajsa von Hofsten, 2002)
- Paradiset (2000) (Paradise, trans. Ingrid Eng-Rundlow, 2004)
- Prime Time (2002) (Prime Time, trans. Ingrid Eng-Rundlow, 2006)
- Den Röda Vargen (2003) (English translation The Red Wolf)
- Nobels testamente (2006)
- Livstid (2007)
- En plats i solen (2008)
The Maria Eriksson novels
- Gömda - en sann historia (Buried Alive - A True Story, 1995; updated edition 2000)
- Asyl - den sanna fortsättningen på Gömda (Asylum Granted - A True Story, 2004)
Miscellaneous
- Det finns en särskild plats i helvetet för kvinnor som inte hjälper varandra co-written with Lotta Snickare (2005)
Awards
The Poloni Prize (Polonipriset) 1998 for Best Swedish Crime Novel by a Female Writer (for "The Bomber")
The Debutant Prize (Debutantpriset) 1998 for Best First Novel of the Year (for "The Bomber")
Swedish Union's Award 1999 for Author of the Year (for "Studio 69")
Shortlisted for The Glass Key (Glasnyckeln) 1999, for Best Nordic Crime Novel of the Year (for "The Bomber") and The Swedish Academy of Crime Writers' Award (Svenska Deckarakademins pris) 1998 for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year (for "The Bomber" and in 1999 for "Studio Sex")
External links
-- Metadata: see Wikipedia:Persondata -->
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