[SKRIVA] The Seminar with the Stieg Tattoo
- From: Ahrvid Engholm <ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 03:23:48 +0100
(Jag skrev på engelska - postat på ett par internationella listor - en helt
annan och kortare rapport kring seminariet om Stieg Larsson. Se även tidigare
rapport. Det går mer in på exempelvis Stiegs karriär inom science fiction, och
tar inte upp allt som sades på seminariet - vilket kanske inte är så intressant
för utländska läsare, men den som kan svenska får en pekare. Här får SKRIVA den
engelska rapporten också. --AE)
A couple of days ago a visited a seminar in Stockholm about the bestselling
writer Stieg Larsson. It is held yearly around his death day (nov 9, 2004; the
seminar was nov 8) but I have somehow managed to miss it until now.
The thing is that I knew Stieg Larsson who was active in science fiction for
10+ years (approx 1969-1980), eg as a prominent fanzine editor (Fijagh,
Långfredagsnatt, SFären, Fanac, often together with one Rune Forsgren and of
course Eva Gabrielsson), board member of the Scandinavian SF Association
("SFSF", he was later chairman), even con organiser (eg the disasterous Minicon
5). There are plenty of Swedish fans around who also knew Stieg, especially
John-Henri Holmberg who was one of the few from skiffy circles Stieg kept
contact with after he left to become more involved in political journalism.
(JHH can tell you *much* more about all this, but your humble servant also met
Stieg a lot way back, almost weekly 1977-1980, around four years, when the
Scand SF Assoc had its club house where we all converged.)
I wrote a lengthy report from the seminar which is available *in Swedish*
here:
//www.freelists.org/post/skriva/Mn-som-lskar-Stieg-Larsson
I won't repeat everything, but give a few notes. Organiser was one Kurdo Baksi
who became a friend of Stieg in AFAIK early 90's and helped Stieg in his work
against neo-nazism. The seminar lasting almost four hours covered Stieg and
feminism, Stieg the anti-racist, Stieg the internationalist and journalist and
finally a lecture about xenophobia by Anna-Lena Lodenius who was co-author with
Stieg of their first book (Högerextremism, "Right Wing Extremism", 1991 - Stieg
wrote a number of non-fiction books before Millennium).
One personally interesting thing is that I know Anna-Lena quite a bit. I had
her as lecturer when I studied journalism at Stockholm University, but I know
her much better from later years as one of the merry friends from the "funny"
cult music club Sunkit (there'll be a Christmas gathering Dec 19, if anyone is
around). I have of course talked with her a bit about Stieg Larsson.
But very interesting is also that father (Erland) and brother (Joakim)
Larsson were there. I spoke to them a bit and tried to sort of update them
about all the activities Stieg had in science fiction and fandom. That was
actually quite a lot, but most biographies around miss much of it. My
impression is that the family Larsson didn't have a full view of all that Stieg
did. Father Erland said something like "We knew Stieg did something with
science fiction, but not exactly what."
This is quite common. Science fiction hasn't been seen as quite kosher and a
person is apt to hide or downplay skiffy activities, and especially fandom
activties - which is even weirder than science fiction in itself. I know for a
fact that Stieg was very interested in this rocketship stuff from at least
1969. A few years ago my friend Bertil Falk, editor of a re-launch of the Jules
Verne Magasinet, gave me a stack of editorial JVM documents for further
distribution to the Royal Library (Bertil himself had no time for it). In this
stack (which I of course leafed through; it is now in the Royal Library) I
found a short-story manuscript by a 15 year-old "Stig Larsson" (before he
became Stieg), which was rejected by JVM. The story was no good, I promise!
(But I should have made a copy...)
In a coffee break Joakim Larsson told me that they have had a number of
proposals to publish "all of Stieg's early short stories", as if they were many
or any good. But he also said "it would feel like cheating people" - because
the stories weren't any good. I don't think we will see these stories in
reprint. There should be a limit to literary necrophilia.
Stieg later became a much better non-fiction writer in fanzines. There has
been conspiracy theories that Stieg didn't write his stuff. I can assure you he
did. He had a lot of writing experience, from fanzines in the 70's, political
journalism in the 80's, several books in the 90's and 00's. Kurdo Baksi who
arranged the seminar also said that many of the opinion pieces published under
his name in major newspapers were actually mostly written - by Stieg Larsson,
uncredited.
Going back to Stieg's fandom activities he was (and also Eva) very often in
the SFSF club house. We were a gang hanging around there a lot and I don't know
how many evenings we ended up in the cellar sitting in the sofa discussing
skiffy, politics, literature, everything. There are some stories I remember
from all that, but I skip it for now. (My position was as a young, angry
"fannish" member having opposition to the boring board, where Stieg sat, in my
DNA. I and others wrote crappy fanzines to hand out during these meetings.)
My definite impression is that Stieg Larsson vas very, very into all this
with science fiction and fandom for a period lasting well over a decade, and
this is something that hasn't really been covered nearly enough in the Stieg
Larsson biographies. For instance, in a way he can be considered as a
co-founder of the successful Stockholm SF Bookstore, since it was started by
SFSF where Stieg was in the board and he also helped setting up shelves, paint
walls etc when the first incarnation of the bookstore opened (on Pontonjärgatan
45, an address all Stieg Larsson tourist walks in Stockholm misses).
My experience is that you don't go into science fiction fandom
half-heartedly. If you get the virus it's a serious infection. This doesn't
stop you from having other interests (Stieg's political interests were obvious)
and you may after a longer period of illness recuperate a bit and move to
something else (as Stieg did). But there will always be some remnants of the
infection. I have a feeling that the Millennium books, had they continued,
would have moved a bit more into science fiction. Lisbeth Salander is a typical
cyberpunk girl and maybe book 9 or 10 or so would have become something
William-Gibson-like. It's a thought at least.
But I too am absolutely stunned by the world-wide success of the Stieg
Larsson books. There are some things you can't imagine when you sit in a cellar
debating some topics with a guy some time in the late 70's. The story of Stieg
Larsson is almost science fiction in itself.
--Ahrvid
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ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx / Be an @SFJournalen Twitter Follower for all the latest
news in short form! / Gå med i SKRIVA - för författande, sf, fantasy, kultur
(skriva-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, subj: subscribe) / Om Ahrvids novellsamling Mord
på månen: http://www.zenzat.se/zzfaktasi.html C Fuglesang: "stor
förnöjelse...jättebra historier i mycket sannolik framtidsmiljö"! / Läs AE i
nya Vildsint Skymningslandet, årets mest spännande antologi - finns bl a på
SF-Bokhandeln! / YXSKAFTBUD, GE VÅR WCZONMÖ IQ-HJÄLP! (DN NoN 00.02.07)
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