Stieg Larsson wins 2008 Boeke prize

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Scandinavian author, Stieg Larsson, took home the prize ass the winner of the 2008 Exclusive Books Boeke competition on 7 October 2008.

Related Links

• The Exploding Bookshelf
• The 2008 Boeke Prize shortlist

Larsson's debut novel is an epic tale of serial murder and corporate trickery spanning several continents and taking in complicated international financial fraud and the buried evil past of a wealthy Swedish industrial family.

It won Sweden's Glass Key Award in 2005 for best crime novel of the year.

As a campaigning journalist, he dedicated his life to opposing racism and was a leading expert on anti-democratic, right wing extremist organisations.

His other great preoccupation was violence against women. This is reflected in the novel’s original Swedish title, Men Who Hated Women.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (published by Book Promotions) is the first volume in the Millennium trilogy, named after the magazine where the main character, journalist-hero Mikael Blomkvist works.

Tragically, Stieg Larsson did not live to enjoy the enormous success of the first volume; he died in 2004 of a heart attack, aged 50, soon after delivering the text of the novels that make up the Millennium Trilogy – before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was published.

Larsson’s award marks the 10th time in the 14-year history of the Boeke Prize that a debut novel has scooped the award. In 2004, two debut novels were joint winners of the Prize, making a total of 11 debut novel-winners in 14 years. < p>The Boeke Prize promotes the enjoyment of discovering books that compel, that are fresh, original and captivating good reads. The judges’ panel comprised 40 book critics across South Africa. They had to choose "the ultimate page turner" from a shortlist of eight titles. The other titles were:

Shatter, Michael Robotham (Penguin Books)