Facts: The politicians in the world of fiction
They are seen everywhere right now – in debates, in interviews and in election campaigns.
But how is the politician portrayed in fiction? During the summer, we highlight some memorable politicians from books, film and television.
After Birgitte Nyborg from the Danish series “Borgen” and Prime Minister Johan Kleve in Kjell Espmark’s novel “Hate” comes the unnamed State Council in Bo Balderson’s eleven-book detective series.
How did the prime minister appoint such an obviously politically disloyal figure as interior minister?
In the debut book “State Council and Death”, Bo Balderson claims that it is due to a misunderstanding. The Prime Minister, who was then just a simple official (Chancellor Council), had put on too big galoshes on a rainy day. To fill the void in his shoes, he tore up the front pages of the morning paper.
At the same moment, the prime minister stepped into the room, misinterpreted the situation and was greatly pleased that someone else had also been enraged by reading the leadership’s vile attack on the government.
His fate was sealed
“Even a barren and bound nature would have been warmed by this spontaneous demonstration of loyalty”, explains the narrator (the retired and hypochondriac school teacher Vilhelm Persson – also the State Council’s brother-in-law). There and then the fate of the Chancellery Council was sealed. Despite his very little political experience, he was appointed Minister of the Interior.
There were to be eleven books about the unruly and child-rich State Council. Bo Balderson’s series, published between 1968 and 1990, was wildly popular, perhaps especially with a middle-class readership that enjoyed the snubs the author occasionally dished out to the Social Democratic government.
It was said that the pseudonym Balderson had inside information about how things went behind the scenes in the prime minister’s inner circle. How else could he deliver such vivid depictions of the political world?
Who was Bo Balderson?
Over the years, the intricate murder mysteries in the books became more and more overshadowed by the real mystery – that of Mr. Balderson’s true identity. Over 60 people have been singled out as probable Baldersons, with famous names such as Ebbe Carlsson, Sven Delblanc, Gösta Gustaf-Janson, Olle Adolphson, Maria Lang and Barbro “Bang” Alfving at the forefront.
“We’ve written every other sentence,” the latter two replied with a twinkle in their eye when they were portrayed as the duo behind the author pseudonym.
But even though the “revelations” have been closely surrounding Bo Balderson, the person behind the pseudonym has never come forward. Her name is to be revealed only upon the author’s death, it has been said.
Since a large part of the proposed names, such as Delblanc, Carlsson and Adolphson, are already deceased, most things seem to indicate that the designation made by the Aftonbladet journalist Jörgen Blom back in 1980 is one of the most likely.
Moved to tax haven Ireland
If that is true, the author’s personality has probably rubbed off more on the neat school teacher Vilhelm Persson in the books than on the broad-minded and somewhat inconsiderate State Council. Blom’s evidence led to a completely unknown assistant professor in Swedish and history named Björn Sjöberg, who received large royalty payments from Bonniers and moved to Ireland (which at the time was a tax haven for writers).
But Sjöberg refused and the circus around Balderson continued.
“Jörgen Blom’s disclosure in Aftonbladet had indeed been correct. But it was not a fun disclosure in relation to the expectations that Bonnier’s skillful marketing had inflated,” observed Jan Guillou much later.
Although the hype surrounding the State Council and its faithful squire, Mr. Persson, has fallen significantly in recent years, the myth of Bo Balderson lives on. And the occasional real politician would probably like to have tips on how to survive all political crises as a member of the Council of State, regardless of whether you sit in a social-democratic or a bourgeois government.