Cecilia Sjögren fell in love with Mallorca on her very first visit to the island and in 2008 she and her husband decided to buy an apartment on the island in order to spend more time in Mallorca and enjoy family holidays. Eventually Mallorca became much more than just a second home, it became her haven to write her crime novels, and in 2022 Cecilia won Saga Egmont’s crime fiction competition among more than 100 submissions with her manuscript Svallvåg, a story that begins in Bendinat in Mallorca.
Now, three years later, the novel has been translated into eight languages and was released in Spanish on December 17 with the title Ecos del pasado. Last month it was released in English with the title The Things We Leave Behind. “It feels fantastic that my story can take flight into the world and meet new readers and listeners,” says Cecilia.
Cecilia has for many years been a part-time resident in Cala Major, and Mallorca’s environment has served as inspiration both during the writing process and for the setting of the story. “My crime universe is usually set in Roslagen in Sweden,” Cecilia explains, “but in Ecos del pasado Mallorca plays a role in the plot. It is also in Bendinat that the story begins - with a murder and the scent of pine…”
“I cycled there with my laptop and wrote the Mallorca scenes on site,” Cecilia continues. “There is something about the atmosphere there. It sparked my crime-writing imagination and an idea I couldn’t let go of: the quiet residential area, the elegant hotel, a sense of bygone times ...”
Time itself also plays an important role in the narrative. A historical timeline unfolds in the midst of a world at war. What begins as an unexplained death in a local care home soon spirals into a delicate exploration of guilt, generational secrets, and fragile memory. A retired policeman and a young journalist piece together a fractured WWII past shrouded by hidden truths and small-town suspicion.
Gripping and moving, Echos del pasado is a story of memory, grief, and guilt that echoes across decades. As the past collides with the present, it asks: what do we owe the dead, and at what cost do we unearth what they left behind?
But Cecilia never set out to be a writer.
“I’ve always been a big reader ever since I was a child. I loved reading but it was not until some 20 years ago that I started writing,” she told the Bulletin. “I attended a number of courses and realised that I could actually write and began with crime; it’s easier to create the plot to be honest. You have the beginning and the end, then you tie it all together and I liked it - all the intrigue. I just kept writing, practising at every available moment and opportunity,” she explained.
The key characters to her novels - she is now on number three - are a 75-year-old stroke victim living in a care home and a young female journalist. “They are not your typical crime novels, I don’t get bogged down in all the police work, etc. I know nothing about how the police work. There are various layers to my stories but the overriding focus and message is how we, society, look at and treat the elderly. My character may well have had a stroke but mentally he is crystal sharp and clear, but sadly he has been put into a home.
“The novel took me seven years to complete as bits and pieces gradually came to me but I guess it was my mother who inspired my to use my novels to look at how society treats the elderly. As she grew old she got increasingly angry with how she was treated despite being extremely smart and capable,” Cecilia explained.
Much of the book was written in Mallorca.
“The island inspires me. I write on my balcony in the early morning before the sun rises. I find that I can focus better when I’m in Mallorca, stories develop better in my head. Now the kids have grown up, I’m often alone, which helps. And not having to work full time anymore, I am more flexible and can pop back and forth between Sweden and Mallorca much more often, although I tend to avoid the peak summer months. So if I’m not on the balcony, I could be on the sofa or even writing on the plane. If I get an idea, I start writing wherever I am.
Sweden’s dark side
“I guess my novels are rather dark. Over the past 20 ,years, Swedish literature, TV and film have become world famous, especially crime and I think that’s because people were surprised to learn that Sweden has a dark side. I know for years the country had a reputation for being the perfect place with few social problems and everybody was happy. But that’s not the reality. It has the same issues as every other country, if not more in some cases. It has social conflict, and I think when people began to realise that and looked into Swedish culture more, its new appeal grew and it continues to grow,” Cecilia explained.
“But while I write crime, I have never been a big crime reader. I read a lot of Virginia Woolf, Ian McEwan, Tessa Hadley, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Ruiz Zafón, for example. I love Woolf’s way of writing and the way Márquez connects with the reader. If I could invite a group of authors to dinner (alive or dead), it would be Woolf and Márquez, I think those two together would be enough for me. In the meantime I will continue living my dream, which is not only writing but having my books published. And spending as much time in Mallorca as possible.”