The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
First edition (Swedish)
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| Author | Stieg Larsson |
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| Original title | Män som hatar kvinnor |
| Translator | Reg Keeland, pseudonym of Steven T. Murray |
| Country | Sweden |
| Language | Swedish |
| Series | Millennium |
| Genre | Crime, mystery, thriller, Scandinavian noir |
| Publisher | Norstedts Förlag (Swedish) |
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Publication date
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August 2005 |
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Published in English
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January 2008 |
| Media type | Print (paperback, hardback) |
| ISBN | (Swedish) (English) |
| OCLC | 186764078 |
| Followed by | The Girl Who Played with Fire (2006) |
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (original title in Swedish: Män som hatar kvinnor; in English: Men Who Hate Women) is a psychological thriller novel by the late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson (1954–2004), which was published posthumously in 2005 to become an international bestseller. It is the first book of the Millennium series.
Larsson spoke of an incident which he said occurred when he was 15: he stood by as three men gang raped an acquaintance of his named Lisbeth. Days later, racked with guilt for having done nothing to help her, he begged her forgiveness—which she refused to grant. The incident, he said, haunted him for years afterward and in part inspired him to create a character named Lisbeth who was also a rape survivor. The veracity of this story has been questioned since Larsson's death, after a colleague from Expo magazine reported to Rolling Stone that Larsson had told him he had heard the story secondhand and retold it as his own. The murder of Catrine da Costa was also an inspiration when he wrote the book.
With the exception of the fictional Hedestad, the novel takes place in actual Swedish towns. The magazine Millennium in the books has characteristics similar to that of Larsson's magazine, Expo, such as its socio-political leanings and its financial difficulties.
Both Larsson's longtime partner Eva Gabrielsson and English translator Steven T. Murray have said that Christopher MacLehose (who works for British publisher Quercus) "needlessly prettified" the English translation; as such, Murray requested he be credited under the pseudonym "Reg Keeland". The English release also changed the title, even though Larsson specifically refused to allow the Swedish publisher to do so, and the size of Salander's dragon tattoo; from a large piece covering her entire back, to a small shoulder tattoo.
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