Fredrik Backman (born 2 June 1981) is a Swedish columnist, blogger, and writer. He is the author of A Man Called Ove (2012), Things My Son Needs to Know about the World (2012), My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (2013), Britt-Marie Was Here (2014), Beartown (2017), Us Against You (2018), and Anxious People (2020). The books were number one bestsellers in his home country of Sweden. Backman's books have been published around the world in more than twenty-five languages. Backman grew up in Helsingborg, Scania, Sweden. He has been writing for the Swedish newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad and for the Swedish men's magazine, Moore Magazine. Backman debuted as a novelist in 2012 with A Man Called Ove. The novel was adapted as a film with the same title and it premiered on December 25, 2015. The rights to his book Beartown have been bought by a Swedish production company, Filmlance, and are set to be adapted for television. Many of his books have been translated into English. After his debut novel, A Man Called Ove was translated into English, it landed on the bestseller list for 42 weeks. Following the wild success of his first book, Atria bought the rest of the novels he'd written and translated them to English. Fredrik Backman married his wife, Neda Shafti Backman, in 2009. His first child was born in 2010. They currently have two children together. His second book, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World (2012), was based on his own experiences with parenting. He labeled it a dysfunctional parenting guide and made a deal that his publisher had to publish this book in order to publish A Man Called Ove. Less