Episode 1: Sweden and the Beginnings of Nordic Noir

We begin in Sweden with the writers Sjöwall Wahloo, the duo considered to be the inventors of the Nordic Noir genre. We meet crime writer, criminologist and expert on Sjöwall Wahloo, Christoffer Carlsson; top selling Swedish author, Jens Lapidus, on the gang wars of Stockholm and Professor Beverley Allen dissects the differences in Nordic Noir style between the Scandinavian countries

Source: Getty Images

Christopher Carlsson is a criminologist and top selling crime writer. In 2013 he became the youngest writer to win Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year with The Invisible Man from Salem.  In 2017, Carlsson finished his series about Leo Junker with the fourth and final instalment, The Thin Blue Line 

Jens Lapidus is a Swedish defense lawyer and author who wrote three of the biggest sellers in Sweden this decade. Easy Money, Never Fuck Up and Life Delux.  His latest book, Top Dog, was published in 2017

Beverly Allen is Professor Emerita of French, Italian and Comparative Literature at Syracuse University and a visiting Professor in Comparative Literature at Stanford University.  

 

This episode's featured book reading is of The Abdominal Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (Norstedts förlag, 1971). The reader is Kruno Martinac

Producer: Johan Gabrielsson

Sound Engineer: Vlad Ladgman