Friday 21 Lifestyle | Features Friday, May 1, 2020

Erin Kemble carries a child’s wading pool as she demonstrates This handout picture from the Instagram account of Erin how she created a costume representing the character Violet Kemble, shows her wearing a “Waldo” costume. Beauregarde from “Charlie and Chocolate Factory”. Erin Kemble wears an “Elf on the Shelf” costume. so important!” on one sign, which accompanied her portrayal of an iconic scene from the 1989 John Cusack film “Say Any- thing.” “I’m very open and honest about that, and I’ve been treated all of my adult life,” she said of her depression, adding, “It’s something I know many, many people suffer from.” She said she hopes her displays give those people something to look forward to and a reminder that things will get better. “It’s keeping me sane.” “If my little nonsense foolishness make someone laugh ... it’s OK, I don’t mind,” Kemble said. “You’ve got to have hope.” The dozens of positive comments show she is at least providing entertainment and a light-hearted moment amid the bad news surrounding COVID-19. “I’m stuck in- side; I’ve got a crazy imagination. Why not do this, if this could benefit someone.” “Maybe I’ve been training for this This handout picture from the Instagram account of Erin my whole life.”—AFP Erin Kemble wearing a “Little Miss Piggy” costume. Kemble, shows her wearing a “ET” costume. ‘Nordic Noir’ pioneer Maj Sjowall dead at 84

aj Sjowall, one half of a Swedish crime-writing wrote in 2015, in a story headlined “The couple who in- couple credited with inventing “Nordic Noir”, vented Nordic Noir”. Mhas died aged 84, her publisher said on Wednes- Both committed Marxists, they went beyond crime fic- day. Sjowall, a pioneer of gritty realism and an inspiration tion, breaking new ground by carrying out a forensic ex- to modern crime writers, “passed away today after an ex- amination of the failings of Swedish society. The modern tended period of illness,” Ann-Marie Skarp, head of pub- themes they tackled included paedophilia, serial killers, lisher Piratforlaget, told AFP. With her partner Per the sex industry and suicide. “Through the eyes of Martin Wahloo, who died in 1975, Sjowall penned a 10-book se- Beck and his colleagues, they held a mirror up to Swedish ries centred on the dour, middle-aged and decidedly un- society at a time when the ideals of the welfare state were heroic and his team of detectives in beginning to buckle under the realities of everyday life,” Stockholm’s National Homicide Bureau. Scottish crime writer Val McDermid wrote in the intro- Books like “”, “The Laughing Policeman” and duction to the 2006 edition of “The Man Who Went Up “The Abominable Man,” featured tightly structured plots In Smoke”. packed with realistic details, charting the unglamourous slog and grind of police work. “Her and Per Wahloo’s 10 Late night writing sessions novels about Martin Beck... will become classics and have Born September 25, 1935 in Stockholm, Sjowall studied This picture taken on September 15, 2015, shows Swedish inspired, I dare say, all now living authors of crime nov- journalism and graphics. She worked as a translator, and crime author Maj Sjowall in Malmo, Sweden. –AFP els,” Skarp said. art director, and as journalist for Swedish magazines and newspapers. It was through her work that she met plots, travelling, taking hundreds of photographs, meeting Nordic Noir Wahloo, a successful political journalist, in 1961. The two people and drawing maps, Sjowall explained in a Q&A in The duo also penned the series decades before the quickly became a couple and had two sons. the first book “Roseanna”. likes of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson made the Then they decided to launch the Martin Beck series. After Wahloo’s death from cancer aged 48 in 1975 — genre of “Nordic Noir” into a worldwide hit. “They broke After dinner and having put their sons to bed, they would weeks after the last book in the series, “”, with the previous trends in crime fiction,” Henning sit opposite each other and write through the night, a was published — she continued working as a translator. Mankell wrote in an introduction to the 2006 English edi- chapter each. “We worked a lot with the style,” she ex- She also collaborated on “The Woman Who Resembled tion of “Roseanna”. His own Inspector Kurt Wallander se- plained to The Guardian newspaper in 2009. “We wanted Greta Garbo” with Dutch crime writer Tomas Ross in ries would owe much to Beck three decades later. Sjowall to find a style which was not personally his, or not per- 1990. The Martin Beck books have been translated into was “the giant on whose shoulders the titans of modern sonally mine, but a style that was good for the books.” 40 languages, according to news agency TT, and served Scandi crime fiction stand,” Britain’s Daily Telegraph Before actually writing, the couple carefully planned their as the source material for dozens of movies.—AFP