As in the literary public sphere in general, there is a renewed desire to get close to the author behind the work also in the teaching of Swedish as a school subject. By this we do not mean teachers’ and pupils’ possible tendency to interpret the works through a biographical filter, but rather the author's actual physical presence in the classroom. Each year, more than 2,000 author visits are conducted in Swedish schools. Author visits constitute a large and important part of the recurrent policy efforts to get more culture into schools. Pupils’ literacy development is typically highlighted as a main goal for these efforts. But what actually happens during such author visits? In an ongoing project, we have followed and documented the highly popular and critically acclaimed Swedish author of books for young people Per Nilsson's visits in three different secondary school classes. In our presentation, we will show how the author’s performance can be described as an interaction between four various roles: author, narrator, debater and actor. In particular, we will focus on how the author’s authority over the interpretation of his own text is subjected to extensive and contradictory negotiations.