She talked summer. Went to the Nobel party. She ended up on the stamp. Guest “Skavlan”. Her books have sold over 20 million copies and have been translated into 30 different languages. Diamonds sparkled around the wrist and sapphires and emeralds on the fingers. On the red carpet, she was seen with close and famous friends – from Jan Guillou to Mona Sahlin. Yes, Liza Marklund was really everywhere.
Liza Marklund and friends Jan Guillou with wife Ann Marie Skarp at Piratförlaget’s 20th anniversary party in 2019. Image source: Stella Pictures. Liza Marklund, Thomas Bodström and Mona Sahlin at the QX gala in 2014. Image source: Stella Pictures.
The first book came out in 1995, and a couple of years later – in 1998 to be precise – she released the first book in the series about the journalist Annika Bengtzon. It was really Liza Marklund’s heyday.
Then the tragedies began to replace each other.
Close friend Anna Lindh was murdered
Liza Marklund was a close friend of the foreign minister Anna Lindh who was stabbed to death at the NK department store in Stockholm on September 11, 2003. It was Mona Sahlin who gave the death notice to Liza. Without thinking about it, Liza completely put detective writing aside.
Anna Lindh. Image source: Sofia Müller/TT Bild
– I never thought about it then. It was never an active decision. But I put all my crime stories on hold when Anna died. Instead, for several years I devoted myself entirely to women who were threatened, hunted and killed. I made a documentary series about abused and murdered women, Liza said in hers Summer in P1 which aired in 2015.
Liza Marklund outside NK on 12 September 2003 where her friend Anna Lindh was murdered. Image source: Bertil Ericson/TT Bild
It took three years before Liza published a new novel.
Liza Marklund lived under threat
Liza Marklund faced a lot of threats, and then online hate. As a columnist in the country’s largest newspaper, she aroused strong feelings among what are today called “trolls”.
This meant that she was forced to live with protected personal data for many years. Sometimes she had to stay at the Grand Hotel, as it was the only place with the kind of security procedures needed to guarantee Liza’s safety. The daughter, who was 6 years old at the time, was sometimes unable to attend preschool.
Liza Marklund in 2008. Image source: Stella Pictures.
One of the netizens stalked both Liza and one of her teenage daughters. Finally, he could be arrested and convicted.
– I had protected personal data for many years. But in the end there was no point anymore. I had to sell a house after Aftonbladet had published the picture and address on the running note. What would I do with protected personal data, Liza told us in her summer talk.
Here, in Lärkstaden in Östermalm, Liza Marklund bought a house for SEK 20 million. Image source: Dan Hansson/SvD/TT Image
The house in question was a former embassy in Lärkstaden on Östermalm, for which Liza paid SEK 20 million, something The evening paper wrote about the year 2005.
– You get used to everything. And now this has been going on for a quarter of a century. Although I don’t write columns anymore. I give almost no interviews and I don’t participate in any debate, Liza said.
Liza Marklund’s daughter got cancer
When Liza Marklund’s eldest daughter Annika every 28 she got sick with cancer. Liza was in an interview with Dagens Industri when she saw that her daughter had called. Liza called up.
– She said “The test results have arrived and the doctor says that I must come in and that I must bring my relatives with me”. There was silence in the street. All the people disappeared. It became a void. They said they didn’t know how far the cancer had spread, or if so how much. The thoughts came naturally. The anger, the sadness, the powerlessness, the divine injustice. Why would she be born if she was just going to die? All these years of love, concern and care. Was it all in vain? Was it worth nothing? I knew it was. It was worth everything, everything. And if she was going to die now, it was my job to help her do it.
Liza Marklund with daughter Annika in 2012. Image source: Stella Pictures.
Today, Liza’s daughter is healthy from cervical cancer. She is married and has children. In her summer talk, Liza told us that there was a before and after of her daughter’s illness.
– I became different. Perhaps nothing broke, but something took a different shape. Things that were so important before have dissolved into intolerable indifference. Everything that has to do with the public, for example. Television appearances. Interviews. Opinions and debates. Just the thought fills me with fatigue, Liza Marklund told me.
Liza Marklund married Mikael Aspeborg
It was when Liza was working at the newspaper Expressen that she met her current husband Mikael Aspeborg. He was also a journalist, and it clicked immediately.
Daughter Annika had Liza with her ex Michael Zev Spielman whom she met during a kibbutz in Israel, something like Today’s news wrote about.
Together with Mikael, Annika then had two more children – the son Shoulder came in 1990 and three years later the daughter Amanda.
Liza Marklund chose to leave the spotlight. Image source: Stella Pictures.
On October 13, 2001, Liza married her husband Mikael Aspeborg. The wedding took place in St. Erik’s church in Stockholm. In 2015, Liza’s husband got cancer, something like the magazine Everyone’s has written about.
In the same year, Liza’s daughter was involved in an accident in London. As if there were not enough difficulties for the family, Liza herself also fell ill. She suffered from a metabolic disease that gave her pre-diabetes, liver damage and heart failure.
– That period was the most difficult. Everyone has received but and it will not be the same again, said Liza Marklund to the magazine Psykologi.
Liza Marklund today
– I live partly in the south of Spain. And I’m Marbella’s only son, she told in her Summer talk.
Liza and Mikael are still married today and live abroad.
In 2015, the same year her summer talk was broadcast, Liza Marklund decided to do her last interview. For Amelia Adamowho was then editor-in-chief of M magazine, told Liza about her plans.
– Now I have no desire to be in public anymore. Publicity is not an end in itself, she said.
After the interview, Liza Marklund and her husband ended up on an island in the Pacific Ocean. There they were “for a long time”, which The Express reported on.
In an older interview with The evening paper told Mikael Aspeborg that he and Liza did not put their money in shares but that they invested in real estate.
At the time, they owned several houses in Spain, and according to the husband’s social media, Marbella is still their home.
In 2018, Liza Marklund released her latest book, it was titled Pärlfarmen. Here we see her at the book fair in Gothenburg that year. Image source: Fredrik Sandberg/TT Bild