Mats Strandberg

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-27

Mats Strandberg, born in 1976, is a Swedish author and columnist who has written for the newspaper Aftonbladet and is often called 'Sweden's Stephen King' for his work in horror fiction. He debuted with the novel Jaktsasong in 2007. He is internationally best known for the Engelsfors Trilogy, co-written with Sara Bergmark Elfgren, comprising Cirkeln/The Circle (2011-2012), Eld/Fire (2012-2014), and Nyckeln/The Key (2013-2015); the first book earned an August Prize nomination in the youth literature category. His solo horror fiction includes Farjan/Blood Cruise (2015-2017), set aboard a Baltic Sea cruise ferry, and Hemmet/The Home (2017-2020), centered on a haunted residential care home. He also wrote Slutet/The End (2018-2020), a pre-apocalyptic young adult novel about the weeks before a comet strikes Earth. His 2021 horror novel Konferensen was adapted into a feature film released in 2023. Across both his collaborative and solo work, Strandberg has built a reputation for grounding horror and dark fantasy in recognizably Swedish social settings and institutions.

Universe(s)

Books

• The Circle (2012) · The Engelsfors Trilogy Core Canon
• Fire (2013) · The Engelsfors Trilogy Core Canon
• The Key (2015) · The Engelsfors Trilogy Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 3 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 1 (1 won)

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