Swedish crime wave sweeps European book charts
Led by Stieg Larsson, Sweden's crime writers dominated book charts across Europe, with more unfamiliar names tipped for crossover success
Alison Flood writing in the guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 April 2009

Swedish crime fiction dominated book charts across Europe last year with the late Stieg Larsson joined by fellow novelists including Henning Mankell, Liza Marklund and Jens Lapidus in an impressive assault on the bestseller lists.

An analysis of the seven major European book markets over the past 12 months placed Larsson, author of the bestselling Millennium trilogy, firmly in pole position as the top European adult fiction author, heading charts in France, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK.
By awarding points for chart position and length of time in the charts, rather than numbers of copies sold, the analysis showed a remarkably diverse reading culture across Europe, with just 13 of the top 40 authors writing in English and 27 writing in other languages.

"It was a very big surprise," said consultant Rüdiger Wischenbart, who compiled the data from fiction bestseller lists in book trade magazines from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK, of the lack of English language bestsellers. "You would have expected it to be as high as 80%."
With Britain's Katie Price nestled below France's Nobel laureate JMG Le Clézio, and Ken Follett rubbing shoulders with Germany's Charlotte Roche, the charts reveal "a stunning landscape of probably unrivalled inner cultural diversity," said Wischenbart and his co-compiler Miha Kovac, "yet under strictly European colour", with only European language authors represented.

Swedish crime, headed up by Larsson and Mankell (10th), was the flavour of the year in Europe, and Wischenbart and Kovac predict thatthe Europe-wide success of the Mikael Blomqvist and Kurt Wallandercreators may soon be followed by Swedish fiction writers who arealready making an impact on the top 40. Liza Marklund, whosebestselling series about crime reporter Annika Bengtzon has been anumber one bestseller in all five Nordic countries, is in 12th place,while Jens Lapidus is at 17th and Jan Guillou at 15th. Johan Theorinand Asa Larsson also make the list, ahead of British authors MartinaCole and Nicci French.

Camilla Läckberg was also tipped for the top – she has yet to make the top 40 but has been launched in France by Larsson's French publisher Actes Sud, and in the UK by HarperCollins. "Actes Sud is very strongly trying to find a way to continue their Swedish success story with Camilla Läckberg," said Wischenbart. "The number of translations from Swedish is really increasing."
The authors writing in English to make the top 40 include Khaled Hosseini (2nd), Ken Follett (4th), John Boyne (7th), Cecelia Ahern(8th), Elizabeth Gilbert (9th) and Katie Price (20th).