Katarina Mazetti wrote for both children and adults and is, among other things, known for the successful novel "The Boy in the Grave Next to" from 1998, which later also became a film with actors Michael Nyqvist and Elisabet Carlsson in the lead roles.
Million audience at the cinema
Director Kjell Sundvall made the film of Katarina Mazetti's novel about the farmer and the librarian Desirée in 2002. The film became a huge success and was seen by 976,000 Swedes at the cinema, and Michael Nyqvist received a Guldbagge for best male lead.
- She was very nice and generous as an author. We had to rework a lot, because the book tells the story from two people's perspective in each chapter, and you can't do that in a film, says Sundvall.
He tells that Katarina Mazetti did not have any problems with the filmmakers changing so much of the core of the book to the film.
She handed over the book. It's not all authors who can leave their work so trustfully as she did, so generously. So I thought that was very fine of her. Then it became quite successful too. Everyone was satisfied.
Mazetti's books were translated into thirty languages, according to the radio, and she had great successes in France where "The Boy in the Grave Next to" sold a million copies, tells her publisher Dag Hernried.
"On the track”-Katarina
He remembers an author who could write fun about serious subjects during a time when not many others could do it. Mazetti distinguished herself already from the start by sending in a picture book text - "Here comes the fat family" - written in hexameter.
After the successes with "The Boy in the Grave", Hernried used to get the question of how he discovered her.
I used to say that I got a manuscript written in hexameter and that I understood directly that it was a bestseller - it was of course not that at first - but it was a very good text.
In 2006, she won SVT's "On the track" with high jumper Stefan Holm.
I remember her as happy and positive. We won that year and then she didn't really want to be part of it anymore, because she felt quite satisfied and didn't want to be known as "On the track"-Katarina as she said, says Stefan Holm to TT.
