Vallgren, Carl-Johan

Carl-Johan Emanuel Vallgren has never been sure about whether he should focus on music or on writing. He studied music and his primary goal was to become a musician. Vallgren was born in Linköping in and grew up at Skogstorp near Falkenberg. His mother was a childminder who later trained as a preschool teacher. His father was managing director of a small factory. Vallgren was an introvert child, a bit of a dreamer and a little melancholy, and he found it hard to fit in. He wrote poetry and fragmentary prose at upper-secondary school, and he played in different bands. When he was twenty years old, he travelled to India with the intention of writing a major novel. He penned most of his early work in dingy hotel rooms across Asia and Europe. For fourteen years, Vallgren lived abroad – the longest period was in Berlin – before he finally settled in Stockholm in 2005.