Sweden - Millenium

on the footsteps of Stieg Larsson

The Millennium series consists of three bestselling novels, originally written in Swedish, by the late Stieg Larsson (1954–2004). The two primary characters in the saga are Lisbeth Salander, a woman in her twenties with a photographic memory and poor social skills, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and publisher of a magazine called Millennium. Blomkvist, the character, has a history similar to Larsson, the author. Larsson planned the series as having ten installments, but due to his sudden death, only three were completed and published.

They are:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor, literally, men who hate women) (2005)
The Girl Who Played with Fire (Flickan som lekte med elden, literally, the girl who played with fire) (2006)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (Luftslott som sprängdes, literally, air castle that was blown up) (2007)

Larsson, when he was 15 years old, witnessed the gang rape of a girl, which led to his lifelong abhorrence of violence and abuse against women. The author never forgave himself for failing to help the girl, which inspired the themes of sexual violence against women in his books.
In writing the series, Larsson was also influenced by two murders: Melissa Nordell, a model killed by her boyfriend, and Fadime Şahindal, a Swedish-Kurdish woman killed by her father. Both women were killed at the hands of men or as victims of honor crime. To Larsson, there was no difference, and the "systematic violence" against women highly affected and inspired him to take action against these crimes through his writing. Eva Gabrielsson, Larsson's longtime partner, wrote that "the trilogy allowed Stieg to denounce everyone he loathed for their cowardice, their irresponsibility, and their opportunism: couch-potato activists, sunny-day warriors, fair-weather skippers who pick and choose their causes; false friends who used him to advance their own careers; unscrupulous company heads and shareholders who wrangle themselves huge bonuses.... Seen in this light, Stieg couldn't have had any better therapy for what ailed his soul than writing his novels."
Larsson submitted the manuscripts for all three volumes in the series to two Swedish publishers, with Norstedts Förlag accepting the manuscripts for publication. Norstedts commissioned Steve Murray, under the pen-name of Reg Keeland, to undertake the English translation. Larsson tried to get British publishers to accept his book, but was turned down until Christopher Maclehose bought the global English-language rights of the book for Quercus, a small London publisher. Alfred A. Knopf bought the U.S. rights to the books after Larsson's death in 2004.
By May 2010, 27 million copies had been sold worldwide a number that would grow to more than 46 million over the next five months and reach 65 million in December 2011. In July 2010 the series made Larsson the first author to sell a million electronic copies of his work on the Amazon Kindle. Sales reached 73 million copies worldwide by the end of 2012, and the books continue to sell well today.

arsson wrote about three-quarters of a fourth novel before his sudden death in November 2004. His partner, Eva Gabrielsson, is in possession of the notebook computer with the manuscript, but does not own the rights to Larsson's work. In an attempt to protect Gabrielsson from the people he was investigating in real life (Swedish Neo-Nazis and racists), Larsson never married. He wrote a will but it was not witnessed, making it invalid according to Swedish law. Thus, it is his family who have succession. Outlines or manuscripts for one or two more books may exist.