Sven Almquist, Swedish Justice Minister, announced today that a forced labour camp for crime-writers had been discovered in a remote forest clearing beyond Skelleftea.
“Forty well known writers were kept under duress and forced to write crime fiction for sixteen hours a day.”
The tales they told were harrowing:
One author, weeping, told how he had signed a contract for an accountancy textbook with his publisher only to be forced to work on a twelve volume series about a lesbian forensic investigator who moonlights as a prima ballerina in the Stockholm State ballet.
A neo-Vorticist poet told of the dreary police procedurals he had to produce each week.
Another pair, their faces haggard, had contracted to write the libretto of the “Abba the Opera” but were instead forced to complete a dark trilogy about a hard-bitten private eye in Jankoping.
“These publishers will of course be charged with their crimes, “ Announced the Minister, ”But one cannot but sympathise with their plight. There is a huge worldwide demand for any kind of Scandinavian thriller and we are on the map at last.
Before “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” the only things anyone had ever heard of from Sweden were the Swedish Chef and bloody IKEA.”
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Another Forced Labour Camp for Scandinavian Crime Writers Discovered
(3 posts) (3 voices)
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Posted 1 year ago #
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About time! Pickled herring, anybody?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Like the concept...Harry Potter, Dan Brown have been explored, but as far as I know, nobody has really tackled the Larsson phenomenon...
Posted 1 year ago #
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