Simple Swedish Podcast - #286 - Varför är deckare och 'nordic noir' så populärt?

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

I Sverige är deckare (kriminalromaner) den mest populära av alla genrer. Samtidigt är skandinaviska deckare väldigt populärt utomlands, och det har fått namnet 'nordic noir'. Varför är det så populärt? Om du vill börja läsa böcker på svenska rekommenderar jag att börja med en lättläst bok, varför inte av Camilla Läckberg? T ex här.   Transkript   Ja, hallå, hallå, välkommen till Simple Swedish Podcast. Och dagens avsnitt ska handla om varför det är så populärt med deckare. Och deckare, ja, det är ju kriminalromaner. Det kan också vara tv-serier. Och just skandinaviska deckare brukar kallas nordic noir utomlands. ch det är ingenting som vi säger men det har blivit väldigt, väldigt populärt.   Så varför älskar svenskar att läsa om mord och brott och död och poliser? Och varför älskar världen svenska deckare? Och ja, Nordic Noir helt enkelt. Ja, inte bara svenska utan skandinaviska. Och innan vi börjar ska jag tacka en ny patron som heter Harry. Så tack Harry för att du stödjer podden. Och för alla som vill stödja podden och bli patron, gå till www.patreon.com/swedishlinguist. Då får du tillgång till transkript till alla avsnitt. Perfekt för dig som fortfarande tycker det är lite svårt att följa med i de här avsnitten och du vill kanske lära dig nya ord. Så det är perfekt med transkriptet. Och speciellt att läsa och lyssna samtidigt. Det är ett väldigt, väldigt bra sätt att lära sig hur talspråk fungerar, alltså den talade versionen av språket. Det kostar bara 5 euro per månad. Om du betalar 10 euro per månad så får du också uttalsövningar varje vecka. Där du får repetera och skugga ord och meningar i specifika övningar som kommer på mejl. Så gå till patreon.com/swedishlinguist om du vill stödja podden och bli patron. Så tack, tack till alla som är patrons, för det är ni som gör podden möjlig.   ...för hela transkriptet, klicka här

Hello, hello! Welcome to Simple Swedish Podcast. Today's episode is about why it is so popular with covers and covers are criminal novels it can also be tv series and just scandinavian covers are usually called Nordic Noir abroad and that is nothing like we say but it has become

very very popular so why do Swedes love reading about murder, crime and death and police and why do Swedes love

the world love Swedish cover artists and Nordic noir not only Swedish but Scandinavian and before we start I want to thank a new patron called Harry So thank you Harry for supporting the podcast And for everyone who wants to support the podcast and become a Patron Go to Patreon.com slash Swedish Linguist Then you will get access to the transcript for all episodes Perfect for you

Who still thinks it's a bit difficult to follow along in these episodes And you might want to learn new words So it's perfect with the transcript. And especially to read and listen at the same time. It's a very, very good way to learn how the spoken language works, the spoken version of the language works. It only costs 5 euros per month. If you pay 10 euros per month, you also get pronunciation exercises every week. where you can repeat and shadow words and meanings in specific exercises that come on e-mail So go to patreon.com slash Swedish Linguist if you want to support the podcast and become a patron So thanks to everyone who is a patron for what, because you make the podcast possible

We will talk about covers This genre is like a book or a kind of TV show or something like that. We have, for example, comedy is a genre, action is a genre, horror is a genre, romantic is a genre, so we say a genre. And Dekka is the most popular genre in Sweden of all genres. We are talking about the genre of literature. Literature is fictitious literature, not fact literature. So fact literature is literature about real things, facts, basically.

So, fiction literature is not facts, it's fiction, and we call it fiction literature. And Dekker is a genre of fiction literature. literature and in Sweden this genre has gone from being a niche to a central component for all book publishers. And a publisher is the company that publishes a book So if you are a writer A writer, a person who writes books A writer So if you are a writer Then you write a book and you send it to the publisher

And the publisher publishes the book So the cover is very important for the publisher And it has gone through the years in Sweden It has gone from an import to an export Because in the beginning people mostly read English language covers But now there are many covers in Swedish I mean, I speak original language So before that I read translations from English

But now there are so many Swedish covers So I was going to talk first about exactly what a novel is. We can also call it a criminal novel. A novel is a longer story, a book that is a little longer. In English we say novel. But in Swedish, a novel is a short story. So it's a so-called false friend, okay? So if we say a novel in Swedish, to read a novel,

it's in English a short story. And a novel in English is in Swedish a novel. Okay, so a cover is often a novel. We also call it a criminal novel. And it often starts with a crime. A crime, meaning A criminal act. So someone has committed a crime. To commit a crime.

And often it is a murder. A murder means that it is a person who has murdered another person. Someone has killed another person. A murder. So the story often begins with a crime, or a detective or a police officer And the police or detective is supposed to investigate the crime There is often a partner to the police and there is, through the story, different people who are suspected So a suspect is someone who you think, ok this could be the person who committed the crime. If you can, like, suspect someone. And there are usually different people

who are suspected during the story. So, we might have one person who is suspected first. Later it turned out that that person is not the guilty one but we get a new suspicion and often we have different persons who are suspected. Suspect of committing the crime. Suspect of being the guilty one. The guilty person who is guilty of the crime. And there are other people who, for example, the witness, a witness is a person who has seen something, who has perhaps seen the crime take place. Yes, then you are a witness. And there are also different leads So a lead is

some kind of information that gives you that is important that takes you in the right direction So you need different leads Oh, here was some important information It's a lead, a thread that leads you in the right direction but these lead wires can also lead you in the wrong direction

and that's also common, because you often want to trick the reader a little. You want to create situations where the murderer is But you have gotten a lot of leads that have been wrong So... So often there are these turns You have gone in one direction and you become more and more sure that this is the guilty one. You know who is the guilty one and who is the murderer. And then there is a turn, which means that you get completely new information and you understand that this is not murder at all. It is important in a cover that you build up this tension, you build up You build up suspicious people with different leads, you have different turns And in the end you get a solution

You get to know who is the guilty one, you get to know who has committed the crime and the mystery is solved, and that is often unexpected you want it to be unexpected, that it should not be so obvious, it should be difficult to understand. It should not be so easy, it should be a bit tricky. That's how a cover works. I hope you learned some new words here Like for example a crime To commit a crime and that the police investigate the crime

And search for the guilty So Some history about the cover And after the history we will talk about why it is so popular So often you see Edgar Allan Poe as the creator of this genre People usually say that the first person who started writing covers is Edgar Allan Poe and he wrote the book The Murder of Rue Morgue I don't know how to pronounce it

He wrote it in 1841 and it continued to be published in 1887. the first novel about Sherlock Holmes. And everyone knows Sherlock Holmes of course, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And Sherlock Holmes is actually a common Guinness record book. The Guinness Book of Records. That role was featured in most of the movies. So there are clearly over 200 movies with Sherlock Holmes. And over 70 different actors have played the role as Sherlock Holmes. So, yeah, that's quite a lot.

And it's the first book, as I said, in 1887. So, yeah, like 150 years ago. And then you could say that the 1920s and the 1930s are sometimes called the golden age of the däckere genre because däckere became very popular The period between the war and the2 was called the interwar period. For some reason, the cover became very popular then. In Sweden, it has also been written 60's that Swedish covers started to get big. And that was thanks to the books about Martin Beck, the police officer in the books about Beck have just become a lot of movies and become

a big seller not only in Sweden but also in the world. But it has continued with Henning Mankell who wrote the books about Wallander Wallander is also one of the famous police officers who commit crimes And we have Jan Gijoux who is one of Sweden's most popular authors. So I can absolutely recommend if you want to read classical, popular Swedish books, read Henning Mankell, Jan Gijoux And then, later on we have, of course the most popular writer to write covers in Sweden is Camilla Läckberg

Camilla Läckberg is now, later on the most popular book writer. And I have probably not read anything by Camilla Läckberg. But my mom reads all her books, I think. Her books have been translated into over 40 languages and... Yes, the best selling covers of Swedish authors through the ages

and books that are extra popular are for example Isprincessan and En bur av guld. So if you want to read some very popular big books in Swedish, Isprincessan or En bur av guld can be a good start and then we have of course Stig Larsson Okay, and I think everyone knows the Millennium trilogy because the Millennium trilogy has not only been a huge success in Sweden, but also internationally. So, it is one of the most read Swedish covers outside of Sweden. And we are talking about this trilogy where we follow Lisbeth Salander and Mikkel Blomqvist

The books are Men Who Hate Women, which in English is called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo We have the girl who played with fire and the air castle that exploded And they have become movies first in Swedish but then also It has become Hollywood remakes on these And I'm sure you've heard of men who hate women, in English. The girl with the dragon tattoo. And...

Yeah. But... Why are covers so popular? popular. And I don't really know myself, but I read different articles and research about this and it seems to be safety that makes covers so popular. Because the thing is that, ok, däckare is about crime, murder, death, crime and so on. And that gives excitement, and everyone loves excitement, but these crimes are always solved. They always manage to get a solution. You always find the killer. So this gives some full of chaos. And I think that feels very reasonable. So I can absolutely...

It feels reasonable that it is like that. I haven't thought about it, but it feels very reasonable. You know that the world can't be controlled, there's so much chaos, there are so many things that go wrong, and it does in these books, but in the end everything gets a solution, everything is solved and we can feel the security of it. And that can be a big reason why the cover is very popular. are very popular. And then why has it become so popular abroad with Swedish and Scandinavian covers so that there is even a genre word Nordic Noir. There is a genre on Netflix that you can choose if you specifically want Scandinavian covers. I've read about that as well.

There are some different factors that can be important and one thing is for example that you mix in other genres and you mix in a lot of everyday realism so we have, there is no action movie with a lot of car hunts and people fighting and stuff There is no glamour, it is nothing supernatural, it is no fantasy or anything like that It is just ordinary people with normal problems. We have family life, we have unbelief.

Belief, meaning that you are married, but you have a secret relationship with someone. Then you are the unbeliever. This is called untruth. Yes, so... And... Including this person, the police or detective, is often a bit of an anti-hero. A person who is not at all special, glamorous, not at all aware of his life. Maybe has a lot of problems with different things. With everyday things, ordinary people I mean... it's maybe...

it's getting... it's getting interesting for that thing maybe and... it's pretty slow and low-melt it's like slow tempo it's not action filled

We are building a mood in this story It's not built on action and tempo, it's built on building up a mood, a tension slowly And it's also very visual We often have a special visual tone It's a bit dark, it's cold, it's a bit foggy, it gives a melancholic feeling And that is very common in Scandinavia, but I don't know, it might be exotic abroad It's hard for me to say It's hard for me to say. It would be very interesting if you who listen or watch what does Scandinavian cover or Nordic Noir do? What makes it special? But of course it is a big contrast to Hollywood. Hollywood is spectacular and action-filled and stuff like that.

One thing that I also wanted to say that I found very interesting I read some research about what feelings are there in literature through the years. So, I have done research on how it has changed through the years, through the times You have tracked words that are related to different feelings You have looked at words that relate to different feelings for example joy, or sorrow, or surprise or love, or

sadness I mean, different feelings. And you have looked at words that relate to those feelings. And you have scanned in literature from the whole of the 19th century to today. whole 1900s until today and you have then looked at how these words have changed and one thing is for example that there are tops

of words that are related to happiness in the 20s and 60s. In the 20s and 60s there was more joy and happiness in the literature. Quite interesting. And then you could see that in the 70's, in the 70's, more and more words started to come, which is related to fear and fear. Okay, fear and fear. skräck och rädsla ok, skräck och rädsla more and more words related to skräck och rädsla started to come into literature

from the 70's so it has grown and become more and more frequent with words related to fear and fear And then you can ask yourself why Because this is exactly what the cover genre is built on

That it's like excitement So And the theory is that it is a result of a safer society. That we have a society that is safer and safer. This study was in English literature. So we can imagine that it is mostly focused on the western world. So Europe, North America, for example. And we have a safer society.

We feel more safe. And then we need excitement. People want excitement. That you feel that it's exciting. You want this excitement. But you want to land in safety again after that, so that you want this little Berge Dahl-train and then like, come back to safety. And it gives more safety, that you like, come in in this story with tension and then you come out in safety again and it may be extra much so in Sweden, maybe

because Sweden has had it very very safe, very long so maybe it's related to that. It sounds reasonable in my ears. And before we end, I just want to say that reading is the absolute best thing you can do to improve your language. Especially to learn many words, to build your vocabulary. So if you like to read, I would say that it is extremely important to read in Swedish if you want to reach a high level There are a lot of easy to read books There are easy to read versions of for example Kamilla Läckbergs books and Stig Larsson's books

So I strongly recommend to start reading books in Swedish And easy to read books is a great way to start So I'll leave a link to that and a link to my Patreon where you can support the podcast and get transcripts for all episodes That was all for today, thank you so much for today and I'll see you again next week. Bye bye!