STIEG LARSSON (1954-2004)

Stieg Larsson died on the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 2004, at age fifty. He had done everything that any one man could possibly do to expose, document, and turn back the resurgence of neofascism in his native Sweden. He worked day and night, sometimes in fear for his life, with the small group of political activists who founded a magazine called Expo. The work and the magazine go on. At his memorial service, many friends were astonished to learn about the scale of his achievements, the range of his friendships and of his journeys, and the sheer force that had been exerted by this modest, quiet man in the fields of political and humanitarian endeavour across Europe. His magazine, which received many mocking and abusive messages after his death, did not make a special issue to celebrate his life and work. Its continuing life was and is his deafening and sufficient legacy. A sophisticated political strategist had died, but a younger and equally committed team to whom he had been a mentor took his place in the front line.