“They say nothing ever happens in Langoor, yet Joseph couldn’t shake the feeling that something out of the ordinary lay in wait for him in this sleepy town.”

Max-Michel joined the Stockholm Writers Group in 2023 and is currently drawing on the group’s collective wisdom to refine his manuscripts: The Earthquake Child, The Queery Letter, and The Jungle Palace.

Influenced by literary giants like Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Conrad, William Golding, and Kurt Vonnegut, his writing leans into the subtly magical and surreal, exploring the human psyche in dark yet humorous ways.

Max-Michel’s literary journey began in childhood when his new kindergarten teacher sparked his imagination with tales from the Old Testament.

His parents grew worried.

Their son talked too much about floods and plagues and the wrath of God, and his fervent request for a Bible as a birthday gift was disconcerting.

They swiftly began feeding him other types of books—stories of chivalry and tales of adventure by Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, and Jules Verne. And this boy devoured them all. With thoughts spiralling around the world in 80 seconds, he soon counted among his best friends Huckleberry Finn and young Jim Hawkins.

His parents were so worried.

They hoped things would improve when he started high school. But that’s when he came home with his first book of mythological tales from ancient Greece. Before long, their son was sallying forth on the sierras of his mind, slaying nine-headed Hydras, capturing Cretan bulls, and whatnot.

His parents were so so worried.

This is when our little gentleman, just like his hero Don Quixote, ‘became so immersed in his reading that he spent whole nights from sundown to sunup and his days from dawn to dusk in poring over his books, until, finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.’

That’s when he decided to be a writer.

His parents are still worried.