NILLA KJELLSDOTTER

Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Norway
Sweden

2025 – Winner of the Kaarle Prize for Fiction
2025 – Nominated for the Swedish Storytel Awards for Close Your Eyes
2025 – Nominated for the Finnish Storytel Awards for Close Your Eyes
2024 – Nominated for the Swedish Storytel Award 2024, as Best crime and suspense of the year (Weak Flesh)
2024 – Nominated for the Finnish Storytel Award 2024, as Best crime and suspense of the year (Weak Flesh)
2023 – Winner of the Finnish Storytel Award 2023, as Best crime and suspense of the year (The Girl in the Stone Park)
2023 – Nominated for the Swedish Storytel Award 2023, as Best crime and suspense of the year (The Girl in the Stone Park)

Nilla Kjellsdotter (b. 1987) lives in Finnish Ostrobothnia, in the village Oravais, where her crime series about Police Detective Mija Wadö is also set.  The series had a successful start in both Sweden and Finland, with over 100 000 copies sold the first year (now over 500 000 copies sold across the series). The Girl in the Stone Park won the Finnish Storytel Award 2023, as Best crime and suspense of the year, and was nominated for the Swedish Storytel Award 2023 in the same category. Nilla Kjellsdotter is part of the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland and writes in Swedish.

“Cause in the end I’m just a country girl who was born and raised in a small, small village called Pensala. I had a dream – I wanted to write books. And here I am today.”

Nilla Kjellsdotter grew up in a farming family in a small village with about 350 inhabitants. Already as a 5-year-old, she was interested in writing, an interest she has maintained ever since. Since she does not have a literary education and does not come from a literary family, the dream of writing felt unattainable for a long time. It was not many years ago that she dared to take the step and try her wings as a writer. She debuted as an author i 2022 with The Girl in the Stone Park. 

Before she started working full-time as a writer, Nilla Kjellsdotter worked part-time as a secretary at a law firm, and occasionally jumped in as a truck driver in her in-laws’ transport company.

Her crime series featuring Mija Wadö are addictive page-turners about people with striking life stories who commit or become victims of crimes. The reader quickly becomes involved in the cases unfolding dark secrets.

Bibliography

2026 – The Dreamer (Drömmaren), crime novel
2025 – Not Your Child (Inte ditt barn), crime novel
2024 – Close Your Eyes (Tills natten är slut), crime novel
2023 – Weak Flesh (Himmelsgården), crime novel
2022 – The Girl in the Stone Park (Flickan i stenparken), crime novel

Related news

KJELLSDOTTER NOMINATED FOR STORYTEL AWARDS 2025

KJELLSDOTTER NOMINATED FOR FINNISH STORYTEL AWARD

KJELLSDOTTER SHORTLISTED FOR THE STORYTEL AWARDS

Author photo

Kajsa Göransson. For photo rights please contact the photographer at info@kajsacharlotta.se or https://www.kajsacharlotta.se/