Guillou’s blog attack just a PR stunt?

In August this year, the Swedish writer Jan Guillou was invited as opening speaker at the annual HBT festival Stockholm Pride. This caused writer Unni Drougge to lash out against the choice of Guillou, who she meant had never done anything to support the HBT community. In a column in Expressen she claimed that Guillou is an advocate for a stereotypical macho culture who has expressed that homosexuality is just “a fad”.

When faced with these accusations from Drougge in a tv interview Jan Guillou simply responded:

“She just wants publicity for her new book.”

Well, Guillou is a clever man. In September, Drougge launched her first new book in three years – “Penetrering“. Coincidence? Maybe.

But it takes one to know one. Guillou has been a frequent trouble-maker when it has suited his interests. In April 2001 he critized the Swedish female journalist Kattis Ahlström for making “pretend interviews”, speaking baby talk and being a part of a bimbofied Swedish television. This naturally stirred up an intense debate and Guillou was in focus in many papers. As it happened, he launched his book “Arvet efter Arn” about a month later. Coincidence? Maybe.

That’s why I can’t be terribly upset when I read that Guillou yesterday dismissed the entire blogosphere as babble.

“Who cares about anonymous people’s babble and poor notes?” he said.

And naturally a large number of bloggers come out in defence of blogs and to condemn Guillou as an elitist technophobe. Don’t do that. It’s easy to suspect that this is just a publicicy stunt. His new book “Madame Terror” came out a month ago.

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