Stieg Larsson's Biography

Stieg Larsson was born in Skelleftehamn, the most northern part of Sweden on 15 August 1954 and grew up in Umeå, Västerbotten County.

Stieg Larsson's father Erland was a window dresser and his mother Evianne worked in a dress shop. When they moved to Stockholm to find work, Stieg stayed behind with his mother's father.

His grandfather, ­Severin Boström, was left-wing and had been imprisoned for his anti-Nazi views during the Second World War.

In 1962 when his grandfather died, Stieg Larsson joined his family including his younger brother Joakim.

The 1970s saw Larsson complete over a year of national service; travel to Africa, where amongst other things he helped the Eritrean rebels; and attend a rally against the Vietnam War in 1972, where he met Eva Gabrielsson, who became his lifelong partner.

In 1979 he joined Tidningarnas Telegrambyra, better known as T.T, a Stockholm news agency. Stieg Larsson stayed there for over 20 years in a variety of roles.

Meanwhile he started writing for the Trotskyite magazine Fjärde Internationalen, and engaged in various freelance assignments including becoming a correspondent for the British anti-fascist magazine Searchlight.

In the mid-1980s, Stieg Larsson was involved in the Stop Racism project.

In 1991 Stieg Larsson and Anna-Lena Lodenius co-authored a book on the extreme right.

In 1995 he set up the Expo Foundation and later became editor-in-chief of Expo magazine.

The Expo Foundation was formed to counteract the growth of the extreme right in schools and among young people in Sweden.

In 2001 Stieg Larsson published another book about Sweden's right wing.

According to The Observer's article, Stieg Larsson – by the woman who shared his life:

"At least one serious attempt was made on Larsson's life. A gang of skinheads with baseball bats gathered outside his office. He foiled this scheme by exiting via a rear door. Another plot involved a Swedish SS veteran. Larsson's name and passport photograph were also found when the Swedish police searched the apartment of a fascist arrested for a political murder."

In 2002 Stieg Larsson had begun work while on holiday on what would be known in English as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

In 2004 he sent three book scripts to the publishing house Norstedts.

However, on 9 November 2004, he suffered a heart attack after walking up several flights of stairs to his office and died.

Stieg Larsson died without leaving a will and for legal reasons Larsson's father and brother, rather than his partner Eva Gabrielsson, inherited the fortune that derived from Larsson's posthumous success.

Stieg Larsson's Millennium thrillers - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Men That Hate Women, in Swedish), The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (The Castle in the Air That Blew Up, in Swedish) proved an extraordinary publishing success.

The New York Times published an interesting article about the aftermath of Stieg Larsson's death as well as a clear timeline of his life.