Yan-Olaf Ekkholm

Jan Olof Ekholm is a Swedish writer, the author of detective novels and books for children.

His books have been translated into Danish, German, Norwegian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Czech. In Russia he is best known for the fairy-tale novella “Tutta Karlsson the First and Only, Ludwig the Fourteenth, etc.” (Swedish: Hurra för Ludvig Lurifax, 1965), which served as the basis for the Soviet film Red-haired, Honest, and in Love.

Despite the enormous success of the tale about the friendship between foxes and hens, which went through several reprints in Sweden and other countries, Ekholm worked for a long time only in the detective genre. In 1975 he was elected chairman of the Swedish Detective Academy (Swedish: Svenska Deckarakademin). In 1977 he became one of the founders of the Stockholm Association of Detective Writers (Swedish: Föreningen Kriminalförfattare i Stockholm) and remained a member until 2002. He wrote several highly successful novels. For Murder in Mölndalen (1979) he was awarded the highest prize of the Stockholm Association of Detective Writers.

In recent years, the writer returned to children’s literature. In 2005–2008 he published a series of novellas for schoolchildren about the adventures of a boy named Lasse, who helps his police officer father investigate crimes.