She sees the "rape-revenge theme" as a common thread in the "I Went Down to My Brother" series about Jana Kippo - fiction offers what cannot be done in real life.
Perhaps that's why revenge is so enticing to read about.
Her “Millennium” finale, “Women Who Hate Men,” is the logical sequel to Stieg Larsson’s “Men Who Hate Women,” she believes. In addition, one in three women globally is subjected to physical or sexual violence, often by their partner, at least once in their lives, according to UN Women.
Have we normalized violence so much that not much is being done seriously to protect the women who live in these types of families? I want to keep those questions alive, they are important.
In the present tense
Karin Smirnoff has placed Stieg Larsson's main characters in the present. Mikael Blomkvist is approaching retirement after a life in which he has neglected friends and family. He is a lonely editor and in book number two she gave him prostate cancer.
People might think, “Damn you’re being mean to Blomkvist, are you going to make him impotent too?” But it’s a very common disease. That’s my way of approaching him. Why should he be at his best when he’s 65?
Her main characters often bear traits of people she has met earlier in her life – this also applies to “Millennium”, in whose universe she has written Lisbeth Salander's niece Svala, who has the same capabilities as her aunt.
"Svala is the archetype of all young girls. You are so small and subordinate when you are a 13-year-old girl. I like to give some superpowers to children and young people," she says, mentioning "Suckerormen", her novel about the upbringing of three musical prodigies, bordered by misery and sexual abuse.
“Incredibly vulnerable”
Karin Smirnoff also thinks about herself at that age.
You were so incredibly vulnerable, maybe even worse at that time – back then, no one went there for pedophilia when you slept with a 14-year-old.
After six years with the “Millennium” contract, she is happy to have the freedom to write what she wants again. First, she will finish her first play – a family drama for the Norrbottensteatern – and in parallel, continue with a fourth novel about Jana Kippo, now an artist commissioned to sculpt “The Father”.
Art always has a price. If you're going to do something that touches others, you have to get into their pain points, and for her, art comes at a pretty high price – as it does for many who practice art in depth.
Born: 1964.
Lives: In a village in Västerbotten.
Background: Debuted in 2018 with "Jag for ner till bror", the first of three novels about Jana Kippo. In 2022, "Havsörnens skrik", her first of three books based on Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy, was released.
Message to the next "Millennium" writer (if there is one): "It's not as easy as you think."
