Who Was "the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Based on?

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson is a best-selling Swedish crime novel which became popular internationally. One of the book's main characters, Lisbeth Salander, was actually inspired by a rather unlikely children's character. Stieg Larsson imagined a grown-up Pippi Longstocking when creating "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo".

Larsson once said he was intrigued by the idea of how children's characters would behave as adults. Pippi was one of the characters Larsson had became fond of so he began to imagine her life as a grown-up: dysfunctional, with attention deficit disorder and unable to find a place in society.

For those that have read the novel, the connection between a grown-up Pippi Longstocking and Lisbeth Salander may now seem oddly fitting.

More about Stieg Larsson:

• Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004 so he sadly did not live to see his books become bestsellers.
• Larsson began writing when he was 13 in the cellar of his father's home.
• Larsson met his lifelong love, Eva Gabrielsson, when he was 18 years old at an anti-Vietnam protest rally.