The throne of the “queen of the Scandinavian detective story” is shaking: “ghost writers” are to blame

Camilla Läckberg has been called “Swedish answer to Agatha Christie”, but she has long been surrounded by rumors of “ghost writers”. Journalist Lapo Lappin decided to study the data using stylometry: a statistical analysis of data that reveals the stylistic imprints of writers. According to Politiken, the result indicates that one of Sweden’s most famous authors used unknown ghostwriters (i.e. “literary blacks”) for some of her latest novels.

The press officer for the queen of Scandinavian noir, Pauline L. Bonge, refutes this information: “35 million books sold speaks for itself.”

For the first time, the Swedish media outlet Kvartal drew attention to the fact that two works by the Swedish writer were written by someone else. They ran her novels “Ruthless Women” and “Go to Jail” through a data analysis program that analyzed her writing style.

Rumors of Läckberg’s use of ghostwriters began following Håkan Lindgren’s novel The Ghost Writer, in which fictional writer Millie Mansson “delegates” her writing to another novelist.

Swedish journalist Lapo Lappin substantiated the accusations with evidence, as reported by The Guardian. He uploaded the books into the forensic linguistics tool, JGAAP. The program became famous in 2013 when it revealed that Harry Potter author JK Rowling also wrote the crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

After analyzing “The Golden Cage” and “Silver Wings” by Camilla Lackberg, it was noticed that they resemble the writing style of another Swedish crime writer Pascal Engman, who worked as the editor of the queen of noir at the Forum publishing house. On another short novel, Women Without Mercy, the program identified Engman as the sole author.

As Politiken reports, the author herself denies and admits that she works closely with Pascal Engman, but she wrote the books herself.

When new allegations recently made headlines in Sweden, the writer said the investigation into her work stemmed from “literary snobbery”: “They say I don’t deserve my success and so many readers.” Camilla Läckberg has previously written that her editor helped her find a new voice. Engman denied that he did more than the editor’s job: “Anyone who has published a book knows that the editor’s job with an author’s text happens in a variety of ways. To be clear, I strongly refute what you are implying.” .

In 2007, Camilla Lackberg published her debut crime novel, The Ice Princess. Swedish Camilla Löckberg’s novels about the Fjällbacka archipelago have been on the Scandinavian bestseller lists for many years.

In light of the latest technologies, a version is also emerging that “the queen of noir could resort to the help of artificial intelligence. It is also said that checking the author through programs is forever accurate: “The big problem with stylometry is that you have to make the assumption that, for example, the author’s writing style does not change or writes differently in a framework where all the data is reduced to the present time. This algorithm must be able to calculate data on which it was not trained in order to be able to accurately and with great confidence say whether the right person wrote it or not.”

It is worth noting that many Swedish readers are inclined to believe that it is the writer who dictates the text, and the editor who edits it. Sometimes a whole team of writers works under the name of a well-promoted author: they are entrusted with the outline of the work, and they fill it with content. Rarely are the names of co-authors printed on the cover; sometimes they are called literary editors, and more often they are not mentioned at all. There are other types of ghost writers – a famous person dictates a text, and the writer processes it, typesets it and publishes it under a name other than his own.

Literary critic Elena Dorofeeva spoke about the features of Swedish noir: “The Scandinavian noir genre (the terms “Scandinavian detective” and “Scandinavian thriller” are also used) in literature and cinema, which became widespread in Scandinavia in the mid-1960s, gained worldwide fame in early 2000 -s. The founders of the genre are considered to be Swedish writers – the spouses Pera Valö and Mai Sjövall, co-authors of 10 crime novels about the Swedish policeman Martin Beck, published in 1965-1975.

The main features of Scandinavian detective stories are a socially critical orientation (the authors raise current topics of social phobia, depression, domestic violence, and also often criticize the political system and the effectiveness of social protection of the population), a general gloomy atmosphere, naturalistic images, detailed descriptions of both investigations and crimes, and and the everyday life of the characters, an objective, largely reportage style of narration, a conversational style, often containing jargon. The detective’s personality in Scandinavian noir is devoid of idealized traits. The main characters are usually lonely, abuse alcohol, and are prone to neuroses and stress. Strong and independent women often play a leading role in the investigation.

The world fame of Scandinavian noir in literature and cinema is associated with the Millennium trilogy by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. The novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” was filmed twice, and both film adaptations – Swedish and Hollywood from the unsurpassed David Fincher – became as iconic as the book itself. Sales of books about journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker girl Lisbeth Salander worldwide have exceeded 100 million copies. After the sudden death of Stieg Larsson from a heart attack (by the way, he never had time to see the publication of his books and their fantastic success), the Millennium series was continued to be written by another author, David Lagerkrantz.

Among the most popular authors of Scandinavian noir published in Russia are Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Lisa Marklund, Leena Lehtolainen, Lars Kepler, Niklas Nat-o-Dag, Ragnar Jonasson, Camilla Läckberg, Håkan Nesser, Frode Granhus and many others.

Camilla Lackberg is one of the most popular masters of the Scandinavian detective story, she is sometimes called the “Swedish Agatha Christie.” Her first novel became a world bestseller – as did almost every subsequent one. Lackberg is one of the ten most popular writers in Europe. Her books have been translated into 30 languages ​​and sold more than 22 million copies in more than 60 countries.

The label “Scandinavian noir” is used by publishers to attract attention and increase sales, and under this label they sell books by passable authors who are presented as “detective stars”.

Translator and Scandinavian philologist Yulia Kolesova commented on the situation around Camilla Lackberg: “How I feel about the news. I see in all this just another news feed. It’s as if people were given palm oil instead of butter. And on the packaging it says “creamy”! In fact, the story is as old as time. The most prolific authors always hired “literary blacks” to quickly produce more and more novels.

The same thing was said about Dumas. By the way, it was also customary among artists that the master made markings and drew the main figures, and the students wrote out the details. I think they said the same about Rubens. It is difficult for me to treat a book as a product. This is a conversation between the author and the reader. It seems to me that the reader himself is able to figure it out and decide whether he likes what he reads or not.

As I worked on Lekberg’s books, I had a lot of questions about style. The translator corrects the most egregious things, otherwise it will look like his fault, and the editor smooths out the rest. The output is a good Russian text. For me this is the main thing. But in Sweden, where there is a very reverent attitude towards copyright and everything connected with it, this kind of scandal, of course, will have a resonance. And, as very often happens, this will be additional advertising for Camilla Lekberg’s novels. Thanks to this article, many learned the names of her latest novels. I translated both “The Golden Cage” and “Silver Wings” into Russian. There is a lot to disagree with, but these novels are compelling. I also translated 3 novels from the Fjallbakka series.

“The Witch” was especially difficult for me, where part of the action takes place in the 17th century, but the language and behavior of the characters are modern. I hope I managed to translate it so that you can read it, at least without tripping over anything. And I can tell the readers: In any unclear situation, read books! And learn to distinguish good books from bad ones yourself.”