Kristina Lugn murdered during the battle for the Swedish Academy

The scandal surrounding the subsequent rape condemned “cultural profile” Jean-Claude Arnault led to a deep split at the Swedish Academy. Kristina Lugn was perceived to be taking a position on the most unpopular side, the phalanx with Horace Engdahl at the helm, in the battle against those who were stopped by permanent secretary Sara Danius.

This led to Kristina Lugn being subjected to threats of murder and what she describes as a journey on Dagens Nyheter primarily. This according to what she herself tells the independent journalist Ola Wong in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet two years ago.

I didn’t want to risk more attacks

But the author withdrew the interview so as not to risk further attacks in the media and “hate mail groups”.

– There will be threats of murder, then you will be very scared. It’s awfully awkward, “Kristina Lugn tells Ola Wong in May 2018.

– I haven’t slept tonight. I already have a stalker with a murder threat chasing me. Due to her I had to move from my apartment in Tantolunden. When the media wrote that I live here, this stalker found out about it. She appeared, not funny, she says in the interview.

Ola Wong had several conversations with the author in the spring of 2018. She says that she was very pressured and upset, and that in the end she did not want to go out with the interview for fear of exposing herself to more threats and hatred.

– She felt she was exposed to a campaign. I was afraid of the threat. She said she was feeling anxious and had trouble sleeping, says Ola Wong, today cultural editor for Kvartal magazine.

Critical to DN

In the two-year interview, Christian Lugn expresses himself very critically about Dagens Nyheter and his cultural manager Björn Wiman. She says it is “a certain cultural hatred that is emerging.”

– Björn Wiman is obsessed. DN operates one unit. Back in November, the media wanted a scandal because I live on an Academy property. I wanted to tell him next to me that it was a barter, he says and continues:

– The entire DN Culture has been occupied by the Swedish Academy, but there are very few arguments for their views and they constantly mix us with Jean-Claude Arnault, whom I don’t know at all and who seems to be a bad person.

Björn Wiman says that “he refrains from commenting”.

Kristina Lugn emphasizes in the interview that she doesn’t want to make it seem like she’s feeling sorry for herself. And not as if she opposed the scrutiny.

I saw the Academy as a family

She saw the Swedish Academy as a community, almost like her family. That is why she took the division at the Academy very hard and worked to keep it together.

Kristina Lugn really didn’t take any clear sides in the battle that arose after the Arnault scandal. But it seemed in the media that she supported her good friend Horace Engdahl. A photo of both walking and laughing in Stockholm’s old town during the crisis has become a classic. The photo was taken by DN photographer Alexander Mahmoud and published in many media.

https://twitter.com/dagensnyheter/status/992476588892663808?lang=sk

The author Per Wästberg was one of Kristina Lugn’s best friends at the Academy. She explains that the battle within the Academy was a severe blow to her and that her main wish was for De Aderton to stay together, and therefore was neither on one side nor the other in the dispute.

– She saw the Academy as her family, her true community. Therefore, she was sensitive when the Academy was attacked from the outside. She wanted to maintain the feeling that the Academy was firm in her anxiety, loneliness and feeling of homelessness, says Per Wästberg.

“Sad and misunderstood”

He says Kristina Lugn was very upset by the image in which she laughs with Horace Engdahl. She laughed at something completely different that had nothing to do with the Academy, but the image became linked to the ongoing battle.

– I was sad and misunderstood, I was sad and wrong. But she was used to being praised and given all kinds of hopes. It went up and down, he says.

According to Per Wästberg, the crown crisis became a fatal blow to Kristina Lugn. It led to her being isolated when the academy stopped working. He had long awaited the Academy’s planned trip to Rome in early March when, among other things, they would have met the Pope, and he intended to travel even though he was physically weak.

– He missed the meetings, especially the long afternoons at the Golden Peace. She was always the last to go home. She lost her only fixed point, which really depressed her, says Per Wästberg and continues:

– She went every Thursday without really getting lost. In the end, it was his life preserver. It broke out when the crown virus made it necessary to sit in the age group and the owl.

Meetings are important.

Horace Engdahl also emphasizes that the Thursday meetings of the Academy were very important to Kristina Lugn and explains that she was “One of the closest members to me in human terms”.

“It’s true that Kristina supported me on a personal level during the months that I became a sort of national bus in the press … I really appreciated that.”Horace Engdahl writes in an email.

“I never understood it to make her feel hated because it solidified with me. It may have been about occasional #metoo fans, but its popularity was well-founded and certainly not shaken by it. ” he writes.

THE INTERVIEW STOPPED

Kristina Lugn tells journalist Ola Wong about murder threats and fought during the fight at the Swedish Academy in an unpublished May 2018 interview:

– It is difficult to talk about it because it is like asking that you are being examined. Björn Wiman is obsessed. DN operates one unit. Back in November, the media wanted a scandal because I live on an Academy property. I wanted to tell him next to me that it was a barter.

– It’s enough for me to laugh at Stortorget to end up in DN. It is insinuating. In the end, I don’t know what this crisis is about.

– I haven’t slept tonight. I already have a stalker with a murder threat chasing me. Due to her I had to move from my apartment in Tantolunden. When the media wrote that I live here, this stalker found out about it. She appeared, not funny.

– Then there are people who remind me of me. I was very loved for a period in the 90’s and then they hated me.

– I receive emails where they write that we should all stop and that now will be enough. It’s not that much fun to have either.

– There will be threats of murder, then you will be very scared. It is terribly uncomfortable.

– You have a very strange idea of ​​who you are and what you do. There is a certain cultural hatred that is emerging. It is really painful when colleagues say so.

– It’s like the perpetual argument that you have to endure this to become a public figure. I don’t want it to seem like I feel sorry for myself.

– The entire DN Culture has become obsessed with the Swedish Academy, but there are very few arguments for their opinions and they constantly confuse us with Jean-Claude Arnault, whom I don’t know at all and who seems to be a bad person.

– But it is very difficult to talk about this because it seems that I do not accept the scrutiny. But I think DN has collapsed. They do not describe, they must complement their opinions with facts. They just pour out contempt and ignorance about what it means to be part of the Swedish Academy.