Stieg Larsson, My Friend - Kurdo Baksi [49]
This was probably the first time in his adult life when he could relax and felt that he could allow himself some late nights of pleasure. He could take time off.
I hope that was in fact the case. I really do think it was.
Sometimes I find myself smiling at the probability that the baggy T-shirts I so disliked were a part of this process. By shedding his jacket and tie perhaps he was building up his image as a writer. A sort of circle had closed. The slipshod working-class lad had progressed to reserved austerity and had now returned to being slipshod.
What finally convinced me that he had changed was when he suddenly started agreeing to be interviewed, and to think giving lectures was boring. To my great delight, he agreed to take part on 24 July in a live chat show on Swedish television. The last time he had appeared on live T.V. had been 24 April, 1991.
When I look back at 2004, I realize that an awful lot happened. On 27 June, Stieg rang sounding breathless. He was very insistent that I should place an article in one of the dailies about the secretary of a political party with neo-Nazi leanings. The man in question had assaulted his partner on several occasions.
I recall him saying “on several occasions” over and over again, stressing the phrase every time. Shortly afterwards he emailed me the text as an attachment. I cut about half of it, then sent it out. The following day it was published in Expressen.
I had only just seen it when Stieg rang me on his mobile.
“Well done. The radio people have just been on the phone,” he said, also mentioning that, as usual, he didn’t expect to be paid for the article.
Nevertheless, I recall feeling rather worried after that phone call. I thought he had started sounding stressed again, under pressure. I wondered if it might be linked to a review of Debatten om hedersmord. A leader writer on Dagens Nyheter had written a piece about it that was dismissive, to say the least. The whole article was malicious in tone, and the reviewer attacked Stieg, questioning his motives. She referred to “oddities in an odd book”. She was very negative about the choice of the nine experts, who, in her view, churned out the same message about the causes and forms of the oppression of women.
As the publisher, I also received my share of her criticism, which while pungent and malicious was not totally unjustified. She reserved her strongest vitriol for Stieg’s co-editor, Cecilia Englund. Cecilia was accused point blank of publishing something that was untrue. She claimed to have been in touch with a specialist on Islam whom she quoted in the book, but when the leader writer checked, that appeared not to have been the case. This created a major crisis of confidence for Stieg, Cecilia and me. Not to mention the publishing house. Stieg went through the roof and wanted me, as the publisher, to write a response to the leader writer. I declined to do so. As a result he immediately wrote a piece that was signed by all nine contributors to the book. It was refused by Dagens Nyheter, which made him even more furious, if that was possible.
In a way it also resulted in Stieg becoming confused. He claimed that there was a dictatorship preventing the free expression of opinions. In fact, the subsequent debate led to him and his supporters being accused of trying to impose just such a dictatorship by citing all kinds of theories as to why the oppression of immigrant women was being suppressed.
The whole debate was a mess. It was also a result of other incidents that had taken place earlier in the year. On 11 March we had all donned our best suits in order to attend the inauguration of the Centre Against Racism. It was in fact Stieg’s appeal to the prime minister five years previously that had led to the foundation of this new institution in Sveavägen, in central Stockholm.