Pascal Carl Orlando Engman Murchio (born 30 July 1986) is a Swedish author and journalist. With more than 600,000 copies of his books sold in Sweden alone, he is the best-selling Swedish author in the millennial generation.[1] His works have been translated into 19 languages.[2] Portrayed as a rising star in Scandinavian crime fiction,[3][4] Engman has been called "the master of the new generation" by David Lagercrantz, the author of the later books in the Millennium series.[5]
Engman was born in Stockholm, Sweden to a Swedish mother and a Chilean father.[citation needed]
He began his professional life as a journalist, working first at the regional newspaper Trelleborgs Allehanda, then at online magazine Nyheter24,[6] then at the Swedish evening newspaper Expressen.[7]
Engman's debut novel, Patrioterna (‘The Patriots’), was published in Sweden in 2017.[8]
Soon after publishing, the TV rights to The Patriots were sold to Fabrik Entertainment in Los Angeles, the production company behind Amazon Prime's Bosch series and AMC's The Killing.[9]
Following that stand-alone title, he began writing a series about police detective Vanessa Frank. As of 2022, there are four titles in the Vanessa Frank series: Eldslandet (‘The Land of Fire’), Råttkungen (‘The Rat King’), Änkorna (‘The Widows’) and Kokain (‘Cocaine’).[10] Råttkungen is the first of these to be published in English, under the title Femicide,[11]byLegend Press as part of a three-book deal. Femicide has already sold over 100,000 copies in Sweden alone.[2]
The Vanessa Frank series is sold in over 20 countries and has been translated into 19 languages including English, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish.[2]
In 2020, Engman founded the Pascal Engman Foundation, which works to promote reading amongst children and young people in Sweden. The foundation was officially launched in 2021.[12] Its main activity is to award an annual scholarship (‘Reading Promoter of the Year’) to an individual or an organisation that has made significant contributions in this field.[13][14] The prize committee awarding the scholarship each year consists of several prominent media personalities, including former SVT CEO Eva Hamilton.[15]