Jan Guillou

Jan Oscar Sverre Lucien Henri Guillou
Jan Guillou at the Swedish Book- and Library Convention in Gothenburg, Sweden
Born	(1944-01-17) January 17, 1944 Södertälje, Södermanland
Occupation	Journalist Author
Nationality	Swedish

Jan Oscar Sverre Lucien Henri Guillou (pron. /jɑːn ˌgɪˈjuː/; born January 17, 1944) is one of the most famous Swedish authors and journalists. Among his many books, the most well-known are the novels about Swedish spy Carl Hamilton and the trilogy about Knight Templar Arn Magnusson. He is an atheist and his daughter Ann-Linn is a journalist and feminist commentator.

Guillou rose to fame following his exposure of a secret intelligence scandal in 1973 (known as the "IB affair"), for which he was sentenced to ten months prison. Today he is an influential independent commentator of current events, particularly the conflicts in the Middle East and miscellaneous domestic issues. In his columns in Sweden's leading tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet he tends to criticize the way the United States pursues its war on terror, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the Swedish Security Service and the powers vested in "experts" in for instance court trials.

Early career

Guillou was born in Södertälje, Sweden of a French father and a Norwegian mother. He worked as a journalist for FIB - aktuellt in 1966 and 1967 and co-founded the Folket i Bild - Kulturfront magazine, for which he wrote between 1970 and 1977.

The IB affair

In 1973, Folket i Bild - Kulturfront published a series of articles written by Guillou and Peter Bratt that revealed Sweden's secret and illegal military intelligence agency (Informationsbyrån or IB for short). The organization collected information on Swedish citizens for political purposes and it became a major political scandal, known as the IB affair (IB-affären). Guillou and Bratt were convicted of espionage and got a ten month sentence. In practice, he served 5 months in solitude. Guillou was first imprisoned at the Långholmen prison in central Stockholm and later at the Österåker Prison north of Stockholm.

Television

He authored and narrated the history documentary series "The Era of The Witches" (Häxornas Tid) for TV4 Sweden, was the host of the sometimes controversial investigative journalism programme Rekordmagazinet for Sveriges television in the 1980's and has appeared in numerous other Swedish television programmes. He also authored and narrated the history documentary series "Arns rike" in five parts, describing Swedens development into a nation.

Books

Hamilton

In 1986 Guillou published a novel about the fictional Swedish military spy Carl Hamilton. He has the equivalent training of a U.S. Navy SEAL with leftist background, dubbed Coq Rouge by one of his superiors, while he was temporarily in the security police (Säkerhetspolisen). The first Coq Rouge novel was followed by ten more books.

Several characters in the books are based on actual persons. Jan Guillou himself is the basis of a character named Erik Ponti, which is also the name Guillou uses in the autobiographical novel Ondskan (literally: Evil).

A complete list of the Coq Rouge novels:

• Coq Rouge - berättelsen om en svensk spion (1986) (literally: Coq Rouge - the story of a Swedish spy)
• Den demokratiske terroristen (1987) (literally: The democratic terrorist)
• I nationens intresse (1988) (literally: In interest of the nation)
• Fiendens fiende (1989; English translation Enemy's Enemy 1994)
• Den hedervärde mördaren (1990) (literally: The honourable murderer)
• Vendetta (1991)
• Ingen mans land (1992) (literally: No mans land)
• Den enda segern (1993) (literally: The only victory)
• I hennes majestäts tjänst (1994) (literally: In service of her majesty)
• En medborgare höjd över varje misstanke (1995) (literally: A citizen raised above every suspicion)
• Madame Terror (2006)

A partial draft of an eleventh novel, along with Guillou's account on why it could not be completed, was published as Hamlon in 1995.

A number of film and TV adaptations have been made based on the Hamilton character:

• Code Name Coq Rouge, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgård (1989)
• Förhöret, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgård (Television, 1989) (literally: The interrogation)
• Enemy's Enemy, portrayed by Peter Haber (Television miniseries 1990)
• The Democratic Terrorist, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgård (1992)
• Vendetta, portrayed by Stefan Sauk (1995)
• Tribunal, portrayed by Stefan Sauk (Television, 1995)
• Hamilton, portrayed by Peter Stormare (1998, television miniseries 2001)

Crusades trilogy

Main article The Knight Templar (Crusades trilogy).

After finishing the Coq Rouge series, Guillou wrote a trilogy about Arn Magnusson, a fictional Swedish character from the middle ages who was forced to become a Knight Templar. The series is an account of the life of Arn Magnusson, a person who becomes witness as well as catalyst to many important historical events, both in his homeland of Sweden and in the crusader states of the middle-east. The trilogy, dubbed the Crusades trilogy, consists of the following books:

• The road to Jerusalem, originally Vägen till Jerusalem (1998)
• The Knight Templar, originally Tempelriddaren (1999), ISBN 0-7528-4650-7
• The kingdom at the end of the road, originally Riket vid vägens slut (2000)

Guillou also wrote a follow-up novel about Birger Jarl, founder of Stockholm, entitled the Heritage of Arn (Arvet efter Arn, 2001). In Guillous universe, Birger Jarl is the grandson of Arn Magnusson.

Ondskan

Guillou has also written an autobiographical book about his school years, Ondskan (1981) which also became a film, Evil (2003). The movie was nominated for an Academy Award in 2003, but Guillou was unable to attend as he is still listed as a terrorist by the U.S. (presumably because he was a member of the militant Palestinian Marxist-Leninist group DFLP during the late 60s). He managed to get a visa, but it was linked to attending the Academy Award ceremony for which Guillou claimed the director Mikael Håfström had handed away his ticket to his spouse.

Political views

Guillou has consistently criticized Israel in harsh terms, comparing its occupation of Palestinian territories to South African apartheid as well as claiming that Zionism is potentially racist. Regarding the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza he has said the following:

"Zionism is in its foundation racist because the state of israel is built upon an apartheid system, exactly like South Africa. It is racism to divide humans in different categories and give them unequal rights based on their ethnic origin or language or religion. In South Africa white people have all the rights the Africans lack. In Israel, jews have all the rights that palestinian Arabs, the lands natives, lack."

"[The] difference between Israel and the apartheid state of South Africa is that Israel executes more people and is keeping more people in jails and military enforced ghetto zones."

In the book Iraq – The New Arabia of 1976, Guillou claims that the Jewish exodus from Iraq was unrelated to Arab persecutions, but was really the work of "Israeli agents amongst other things throwing bombs in Baghdad Mosques.". In the book Guillou further described Israel as "racist" and a "European warrior state".

During a TV-debate immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks he refused to participate in three minutes of silence observed throughout Europe to honour the victims of the attacks in New York and Washington, reasoning that "The United States is the great mass murderer of our time." and the terror attacks were not an attack against us all, but only an attack on U. S. imperialism.

He harshly labeled the media's reaction to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot, and the necessity of creating the airport havoc, considering that the suspects had been caught. He argued that the media was driven by sensationalist profit and the British government by a will to give an impression of success in the War on Terror. He also pointed out that no explosives had been found and implied that the Muslim community was being victimized.