Jan Guillou

Jan Guillou is a Swedish author, journalist and political commentator born in Södertälje in 1944. He first became nationally prominent as an investigative journalist after helping expose the secret Swedish intelligence organisation Informationsbyrån in 1973. That investigation resulted in his conviction for espionage and a prison sentence, but it also established his reputation as a controversial critic of state power. His experience of intelligence services and political institutions later informed the Carl Hamilton novels, a long-running series of espionage thrillers examining Swedish neutrality, international conflict and the moral compromises of covert operations.

Guillou’s principal historical fiction includes the novels about Arn Magnusson, a fictional Swedish nobleman trained by monks before serving as a Knight Templar in the Holy Land. Beginning with The Road to Jerusalem, the sequence combines the Crusades with the political and religious struggles that contributed to the formation of medieval Sweden. His later Great Century series follows generations of the Lauritzen family through the major technological, political and military upheavals of the twentieth century. Guillou’s fiction is characterised by extensive historical research, political argument and protagonists whose private loyalties are tested by institutions, ideology and war.