Guillou: You can not privatize the story – Expressen

The director and writer Jan Bergman accuse Jan Guillou to have stolen his book.

I personally think Guillou not think he has done anything wrong.

– If you want the a major attack on me somewhere should turn to Expressen. Now his book came out in paperback and I have had time to recommend it in both television and radio. I have more than himself contributed to the sales of his book, and I did so with pleasure, says Jan Guillou .

His new book “Blue Star”, the fifth installment in the the suite “The Great Century”, based partly on data from Jan Bergman “Secretarial Club”. Guillou writes in his afterword to: “Everything in my novel, which is about the women who Försvarsstabens section C-Agency recruited and exploited in Stockholm during the war years are taken from a single source: SECRETARIAL CLUB … by Jan Bergman ( Norstedts 2014). To borrow as much as I have done from a single book could possibly seem small osnyggt. “

The bountiful literary loans received Jan Bergman accusing Jan Guillou for theft.

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How do you look at Jan Bergman’s accusations?

– It’s like to get shot down. It’s very sad because I think I have dealt with a colleague very respectful. To then get the shit over it is the worst that can happen. If one claims to write history, you can not have copyright on it.

– He does not call his book for a novel, but for history and you can not take the story. I can not write a book about the Normandy landings, and then demand that no one may write about it. You can not privatize the story that way.

Did you contact him ever while working on the book?

– No, but I was not in contact historian Klas Åmark when I downloaded lots of knowledge from his research either. I can not very well ask permission to quote one historian. The proper way, I think was not to interfere in the author himself.

Read also: Guillou loans are morally troubling

Jan Bergman writes that your rape portrayal “hits us surviving as a slap in the face”.

– The thing is, he describes the prelude to a rape situation with four ladies who will be beaten and raped by SS -officerare. He portrays the run up very carefully, but then he makes a censored clip, perhaps of reverence to the people involved. Then he makes a jump to the end where a naked and whipped woman becomes pinkad on. As a novelist, I can not accept it. I portray what may have happened in between.

When I talked to your wife Ann-Marie Sharp before it sounded almost as if she was prepared for this scenario. Were you there?

– I sent long ago one copy with a dedication to him. Because he failed to reply with a thank you – and none in Sweden, except for 70-year-old men do anymore – we thought that he was preparing a suitably timed attack. Which he did.

But you will search out Jan Bergman now?

– No, with the choice of words so it seems pointless to try to talk.