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20-402: Töfrahöllin ('hall of enchantments') is the fifth novel by Böðvar Guðmundsson , published in 2012 by Uppheimar . The protagonist of Töfrahöllin is Jósep Malmholm, born in the 1960s into a wealthy and highly educated family. Jósep's father is a member of Iceland's urbane upper classes and his mother a bright, upwardly mobile, but ultimately frustrated woman of working class fishing stock from

40-717: A goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. She was born in Pålmark near Piteå , Norrbotten . Marklund lives in Spain with her husband Mikael. Since her debut in 1995, Liza Marklund has written eleven crime novels in her Annika Bengtzon series, the stand-alone novel The Black Pearl Farm as well as the first novel in her new series, The Polar Circle Trilogy. In addition, she has co-authored two documentary novels with Maria Eriksson and one non-fiction book about female leadership with Lotta Snickare. Marklund's crime novels featuring crime reporter Annika Bengtzon have become international bestsellers. She won

60-412: A minion in his various power-games and business activities, legal and illegal. Kormákur uses Jósep as his mule in cocaine smuggling, and when caught Jósep chooses to the take the full blame for the smuggling and serves a long prison sentence. Kormákur's influence over Jósep does not wane significantly until eventually, bankrupt and estranged from his children, Kormákur commits suicide. At this point, Jósep

80-578: A selfishly patriarchal worldview and a large helping of homophobia. Kormákur becomes a father-figure to Jósep, whose own (gay) father has abandoned him. He employs Jósep at the fishing-lodge, which Jósep dubs Töfrahöllin (‘hall of enchantments’). Kormákur tries, to some extent successfully, to control both Jósep and his daughters by pairing them up: through a slightly convoluted series of events, Jósep finds himself in long-term relationships serially with Kormákur's three daughters (Valhrund Besta, Írena, and Álfheiður) Kormákur uses Jósep for around thirty years as

100-537: A thirty-five-year span, was thirty years in the making, and attempted to track the changing national character and self-image of Iceland. The reviewer Egill Ólafsson viewed the book as gripping, with colourful characters. Through its chapter titles and the fact that Kormákur's wife is a member of a sorority called the Liljurósriddarareglan ('the order of Liljurós'), named after the protagonist of Iceland's most famous traditional ballad, ' Kvæði af Ólafi liljurós ',

120-466: Is claimed by a forthright Turkish sex-worker, Fatma Özymal, who has been working at the fishing lodge and whom Jósep helps when she is assaulted by Kormákur Cooltran. The novel ends with Fatma popping back to Turkey to collect her daughter in order to bring her to Iceland, retire from sex-work, and, we are promised, to join Jósep in belated petit-bourgeois comfort. The author claimed that the novel, which covers

140-538: Is milder than Jósep's grandfather and a yet more reliable touchstone for prudent, traditional, rustic Icelandic values. Jósep meets the nouveau-riche investor Kormákur Cooltran, partly because Kormákur establishes a magnificent fishing lodge on the same salmon-river as the one where Litla-Háfi lies. Kormákur Cooltran enjoys a winning charm which is, however, underlain by a steely resolve to get his own way, if necessary by psychological manipulation —framed in Kormákur's case by

160-584: The Annika Bengtzon series is crime reporter Annika's hectic life, at a bustling tabloid called Kvällspressen in Stockholm, Sweden. Her conflict lies in combining motherhood with her career ambitions. Prior to The Bomber , there were very few female commercially successful crime writers in Sweden. Marklund placed 22nd on the list of the most influential media personality of 2008 in Sweden, a list established yearly by

180-475: The Vestmannaeyjar . The summers which the young Jósep spends in the countryside at the farm of Litla-Háfi with older male working-class relatives on his mother's side provides a reference point of happiness and wellbeing through his often dystopian later life. These relatives are his maternal grandfather, a committed communist, and another male relative of roughly Jósep's mother's generation, the farmer Símon, who

200-548: The trade magazine for the advertising industry, Resumé . Two films based on Annika Bengtzon novels, The Bomber and Paradise (2003) , have been filmed in Swedish by the English director Colin Nutley . The actress Helena Bergström starred in the role as Annika Bengtzon in both movies. They premiered in 2001 and 2003. In 2009, the film and TV production company Yellow Bird bought

220-505: The "Poloni Prize" (Polonipriset) 1998 for "Best Swedish Crime Novel by a Female Writer" and "The Debutant Prize", (Debutantpriset) 1998 for "Best First Novel of the Year" with the crime novel Sprängaren ( The Bomber ), published in 1998. Marklund was named Author of the Year in Sweden 1999 by the Swedish trade union SKTF , won the radio network RixFM's Swedish Literary Prize in 2007, and was selected

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240-526: The Maria Eriksson series. The novel is based on a true story and deals with a woman who is abused by her boyfriend and forced into hiding. Swedish journalist Monica Antonsson released a book in 2008 criticising the factual background of Buried Alive leading to a public debate about the book and the public libraries of Sweden reclassifying all editions from non-fiction to fiction . The Annika Bengtzon series consists of eleven books. The framework of

260-455: The company into bankruptcy proceedings in November 2015. Authors published by Uppheimar included: Liza Marklund Her novels, of which most feature the fictional newspaper journalist Annika Bengtzon , have been published in forty languages. Marklund is the co-owner of Sweden's third largest publishing house, Piratförlaget  [ sv ] , and has worked as a journalist as well as

280-426: The company set up an online book-club called Undirheima ('Underworld') to promote its translated and domestic crime fiction portfolio, which included the authors Ævar Örn Jósepsson, Liza Marklund , Jo Nesbø , Camilla Läckberg and Sara Blædel . The company got into financial difficulties in 2013 and ceased trading in 2014, with 15 of its authors left unpaid for a substantial period. Its bank, Landsbanki , entered

300-412: The fifteenth most popular woman in Sweden of 2003 and the fourth most popular woman in Sweden of 2004 in a yearly survey with 1,000 participants, conducted by ICA-kuriren, a publication published by a Swedish supermarket chain. Her books have been number one bestsellers in all five Nordic countries. In 2002 and 2003, two of Liza Marklund's crime novels were listed on the international bestseller lists by

320-462: The novel construes Jósep as a parallel for Ólafur liljurós. Meanwhile, Kormákur himself is modelled on the 'sinister, manipulative' elvish king in Goethe 's poem ' Der Erlkönig ', which was inspired by the same ballad-tradition. The novel can be seen as a critical commentary on Icelandic culture during the banking boom that preceded the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis . Uppheimar Uppheimar ehf

340-494: The online magazine Publishing Trends , Prime Time ranking #13 and The Red Wolf ranking #12. In Scandinavia and Germany, her non-fiction novels have become the center of a heated controversy. The Postcard Killers , a crime thriller written in collaboration with American bestselling author James Patterson , was published on January 27, 2010, in Sweden and became number one on the Swedish bestseller list in February 2010. It

360-622: The rights to adapt an additional six Annika Bengtzon novels for the screen: Studio 69 , Prime Time , The Red Wolf , Nobel's Last Will , Lifetime , and A Place in the Sun . In these six films Annika Bengtzon is played by Swedish actress Malin Crépin . In 2004 Liza Marklund was appointed ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF . The reason was her long interest in issues related to human rights. She travels regularly on behalf of

380-514: Was an Icelandic publishing house based in the town of Akranes , which operated from 2001 to 2015. The company was established 11 January 2001 by the husband and wife team Kristján Kristjánsson (himself a writer) and Margrét Ţorvaldsdóttir. At first, the company was primarily a vehicle for the publication of the journal Árbók Akurnesinga . The company was given a boost when, in 2006-7, Ævar Örn Jósepsson chose to publish there, expanding its output to around 20 titles per year at that time. In 2009,

400-590: Was published on 16 August 2010 in the United States. At the end of August, it reached number one in the New York Times Best Seller list, making Liza Marklund the second Swedish author (the first one being Stieg Larsson with the Millennium Trilogy ) to reach the number one spot. Buried Alive: A True Story is the 1995 literary debut of Swedish author Liza Marklund. It is the first novel in

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