Gabriella Håkansson

Her books are renowned for their psychological originality, complex plots, gothic sense of humour and claustrophobic mapping of the human mind.

Rich orphan William Aldermann spends his childhood in a huge, neo-classical house, surrounded by a staff of servants as well as old friends of his dead father.

The boy soon discovers that he has a deeply troubling heritage: his father was the leader of a mysterious, elitist society of free-thinking radicals.

Her lengthier essays concern writers such as William Beckford, Witold Gombrowicz, Mickey Spillane, Peter Weiss and Jorge Luis Borges.

She features regularly in the Swedish news daily Dagens Nyheter, as well as on national public radio.