Karin Smirnoff, Stieg Larsson's successor: "If every human being could tell themselves they have enough, the world would look very different."

Mining operations in the Swedish Arctic, where climate change opens up new business opportunities. Combative environmental groups. Communities opening up to greenwashing money. And businessmen always ready for greenwashing . Of course, the rise of the far right. Sadomasochism. Successive corpses. And a lot of intrigue. Karin Smirnoff (Umea, 1964) takes on Lisbeth Salander, the character created by Stieg Larsson in the Millennium saga, for the second time with The Fangs of the Lynx (Destino/Columna).

And she expresses concern about the current situation: “We live in a time when it's starting to become important to understand where we're headed and what's going to happen. What will happen if the majority denies climate change when the evidence is everywhere, but there are politicians and others who continue to say it doesn't exist? It's as if the world isn't working toward the same goal or for the good of everyone, only for its own.”

“Human beings plunder for vanity,” he writes in the novel, and in a meeting at the Swedish embassy in Madrid, Smirnoff reflects that “if every human being could tell themselves they have enough, the world would look very different. But most can't do that. It's very difficult on a personal level: Do I have enough? Am I greedy? And if you take it on a broader level, it's even more difficult. There are Trumpists everywhere who just want more and more. They're never satisfied. But that's been going on forever, only now we're constantly aware of it. The kind of person Trump is has always existed. There have always been dictators. It's not new, but it's become a movement in a different way through social media and the press.”

“If every human being could tell themselves they had enough, the world would look very different.”

Some populist politicians he sees as “clever because they use different language, they speak in a way that people can understand. They have their agenda and they hide it behind other things. They say they're going to restart all the car factories in the US. Many people will say that's fantastic. With a more serious stance, perhaps that politician would say that we have to help those who have nothing and maybe we need a little higher taxes. But people don't want to hear those things. They want to hear that everything is fine and will be great. And the same thing happens in Sweden with the far-right Sweden Democrats. They talk about lower gas or electricity prices. Everything revolves around money. And people think: great. And they vote without thinking that behind that agenda is another, more terrifying one: Expel all immigrants. Work for the white race. I hate feminists, homosexuals, anything that isn't a white man with a traditional wife.”

“In Sweden,” he recalls, “they decided to go from a group of crazy people campaigning to being established politicians. Instead of wearing bomber jackets and shaving their heads, they wore ties and suits. Now they have 20% of the vote. That's what Stieg Larsson's books were about. And for this to end, people need to open their eyes and see the impact it has. And politicians need to be braver and think about how to have policies that benefit the majority,” he notes. And he concludes that in Nordic noir , “there has always been a tradition with an anti-capitalist flavor. You have the journalist, the power, and you want to combat it somehow. And that's why there are heroes like Salander.” Although now it doesn't seem to be going in the same direction as the world. “I know we need more Salanders,” Smirnoff smiles.