Stieg Larsson's Audience

Stieg Larsson is one of the bestselling authors in the world. In fact, according to AbeBooks.com, Larsson was the 2^nd bestselling author globally in 2008.  Naturally, he has a very large audience. However, as his books were published after his death, he may well have never anticipated the audience he actually has.  He might have imagined that his books would be translated to English for UK readers, maybe, but he managed to reach an American audience as well.  For me, figuring out the specifics of his audience was difficult, because I obviously don’t have Larsson’s input on the subject. 

It could be argued that most of Larsson’s audience was invoked because, at the time of his death, his only audience had been publishers.   He didn’t know many concrete facts about the entire audience he would eventually address, because it didn’t exist yet.  We can assume that is original audience addressed was Swedish adults, due to the mature and graphic content of the novels. I also believe Larsson clearly used positioning as a tactic to get people to receive his message.  He wanted to demonstrate the corruption of Sweden and the injustices of women at the hands of men, so the main point of view of the books is from a man.  The main male character is left-wing, investigates corruption, and sympathizes with the main female character (the victim of men) because he knows more about her than any other character in the novels. By making readers see Lisbeth’s story through a man’s eyes, Larsson positions his audience to agree to his message, almost from his own point of view.  Larsson himself was very much like his main male character; he was an investigative journalist and he witnessed the rape of a young woman, and he campaigns against right-wing extremism, so in a way, readers are positioned to receive his message through his own eyes.

Obviously, Larsson couldn’t anticipate the wide audience his books would eventually reach, as they were all published after his death, so it was up to his translator, Steven Murray, to make sure the translations were audience appropriate.  In an article on ReaderVeiws.com, editor Irene Watson basically says that texts translated for American audiences need to be simplified and Americanized to make them readable.  The article itself misspells some foreign words she tries using to make a point, so I have a hard time taking her advice seriously.  Apparently, Steven Murray did not believe his audience needed to be babied like this.  The translation is not incredibly “dumbed down.”  There are still many very Swedish elements, such as specific locations and names that Watson would consider too confusing for an American audience, but then, the audience is a mature one. 

As far as the relationship Larsson (and through his translation, Murray) has with his audience, he doesn’t lecture them or argue with them, or give a sarcastic or overly opinionated narration.  It’s almost as if he’s just feeding his audience the story through the characters.  The closest relationship Larsson had with his audience was that he put much of himself into his main male character.  Because the author died before his works reached the massive audience he has now, we don’t have his own comments on his audience; we can only assume what he knew about them from how he placed his own views in the stories.