Swedish crime author Carl-Johan Vallgren: 'I slept on my manuscript like a pillow'

Swedish crime author Carl-Johan Vallgren, whose works are widely translated into Estonian, spoke with humor and ease in an interview with ERR about his life, which has been anything but simple. His crime novels 'The Shadow Boy' and 'The Tunnel', published about a decade ago, center on the interpreter and computer specialist Danny Katz, who must descend into Stockholm's murky and violent underworld to find or help his friends – and to save himself.

His most recent work to appear in Estonian is 'Your Time Will Come', which won the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy Award for best crime novel in 2024. It follows police investigator Roger and criminal detective Johanna, both of whom must grapple not only with a gruesome murder but also with seemingly insurmountable personal difficulties.

Raised in a small coastal town with no books at home, Vallgren discovered literature through an inspired high-school teacher and dreamed of living like Hemingway: 'On Monday you go to Africa, do some hunting. The next week you sit in Café du Flore in Paris and drink pastis.'

After serving in Sweden's special forces, he took his army payout and traveled alone to India, where he wrote his first novel on a Pakistani typewriter, filling in Swedish letters by hand and sleeping on the manuscript as a pillow. Back in Sweden, he worked at McDonald's and sent the manuscript to Bonnier, which unexpectedly signed him and handed him an advance in cash.

His breakthrough came in 2000 with 'The Horrible Sufferings of Hercule Barfuss', a gothic, picaresque novel inspired by his deep reading of 19th-century literature. The book sold nearly 400,000 copies in Sweden and changed his life. Vallgren says he could never write it again: 'That was the novel I was supposed to write then.'

After the success, he stepped away from literature for years to record albums and tour with hired bands. Music is joy, he says, but writing defines him. When he returned, he shifted into crime fiction — another experiment. The idea for his first crime novel came from a moment of panic at a subway station, imagining his daughter disappearing with a stranger. He began writing within days.

Compassion runs through his work, even when the stories are cruel. Vallgren traces some of this to his mother, who was sent from Finland to Sweden during the war and grew up between two families and two identities. Themes of loss, grief and divided belonging echo through his novels.

Discipline anchors everything. Vallgren writes in silence for three or four hours each morning — no music, no noise, no distractions. After that, he is spent. The rest of the day belongs to life, travel and music.