Henning Mankell's Books

Biography

Henning Georg Mankell (1948 – 2015) was born in Stockholm. His mother left the family when he was only a year old, and both he and his sister were brought up by their father, Ivar, a district judge in Sveg, Härjedalen in Northern Sweden.

Nomadic Youth

When he was sixteen years old, Mankell dropped out of school.

“I’d planned it for a long time. We had a Latin class, and I decided that when the school bell rang at the end of it, I would leave school and never come back again. So the bell rang, and I did just that. I went back home and told my father what I’d done. I explained that I’d always wanted to be a writer, that I thought I’d got some talent for it, and that there wasn’t anything I would learn at school that could help me.” (The Scotsman)

Ivar supported his son, perhaps because his father in turn (Mankell’s grandfather), had been a composer, and his ancestors had been musicians. Ivar had only taken “a proper job” to shore up the family finances. Within a couple of weeks, Mankell was on the train to Paris. He was 16 years old and hardly spoke French, though he managed to find a job stripping down musical instruments and started writing in his diary. Six months later, his father came to check up on him and brought him a typewriter.

Henning’s next move was to join the Merchant Navy, where he worked on an iron ore boat. The ship took him to Africa for the first time, though he spent most voyages bouncing across the North Sea to the steel works in Middlesbrough and back.

Eventually, Mankell returned to Stockholm when he was 22 to become a stagehand. He published his first book, The Rock Blaster, a novel about the Swedish labour movement, in 1973. Unfortunately, Ivar died just before it was published. With the proceeds from his book, he travelled to Guinea-Bissau. Africa would later become his second home.

Politics

Mankell participated in the student uprisings of 1968, protesting against the Vietnam War and Apartheid in South Africa. During the 1970s, he lived in Norway with a woman who was a member of the Maoist Workers’ Communist Party, and though Mankell didn’t join himself, he took part in their activities. Later, in 2002 he bought stocks in the left-wing Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen (Class Struggle).

In 2009, Mankell visited the Palestine Festival of Literature. Here he compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Apartheid. He also likened the West Bank Barrier to the Berlin Wall.

“The wall that is currently dividing the country will prevent future attacks, in the short term. In the end, it will face the same destiny as the wall that once divided Berlin did.” (Pulse Media)

A year later, Mankell was a passenger on the MV Mavi Marmara as it tried to break the Israeli embargo on the Gaza strip. Israeli soldiers boarded the ship; nine political activists died in the ensuing struggle. Fortunately, Mankell was not one of them. The Israeli authorities deported him to Sweden.

Wallander

Mankell wrote 40 books, including children’s stories, books for young adults, fiction and most notably, the stories about detective inspector Kurt Wallander. The thirteen Wallander novels written between 1991 and 2013 made him famous and wealthy. Wallander (a name Mankell picked randomly from a telephone directory) first appeared in the book Faceless Killers. Mankell used the story to confront growing racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in Sweden.

Throughout the novels, Wallander asks himself, “What is wrong with Swedish society?” He has a strong sense of social justice that Mankell probably inherited from his father.

The Wallander novels have sold over 40 million copies and were translated into more than 40 languages. Wallander could be the 5th most famous Swedish person in the world, coming just behind the members of ABBA.

In the novels, Wallander has a daughter, Linda, who follows his lead and enters the police force. Mankell started to write a trilogy of books that took Linda as his main protagonist, though he only ever finished one, Before the Frost. The actress Johanna Sällström played Linda in the adaption for Swedish TV of the book. She took her life shortly afterwards, and Mankell was so upset that he abandoned the other two stories.

Beyond Wallander

Henning Mankell’s books aren’t limited to Wallander, though many would argue they are his greatest triumph.

In The Man from Beijing, Mankell takes on Chinese colonialism in a story that spans centuries and continents.

Secrets in the Fire, his Young Adult novel, is set in Mozambique. It is based upon the true story of Sofia Alface, who lost her legs when she stepped on a land mine as a child.

His last book, After the Fire, is an introspective look at an old man subject to an arson attack. Part crime fiction and part fictional biography, it blurs the lines between Mankell’s crime and non-crime novels.

Whatever the topic, Henning Mankell’s books reflected his political beliefs.

“Clever authors have always understood that using the mirror of crime is an efficient way to talk about contradictions in society, between men and women, dreams and reality, rich and poor.” (Mint)

Africa

After his success as a writer allowed it, Mankell spent much of his time in Africa. He became the artistic director of Teatro Avenida in Maputo in Mozambique and also set up the publishing house Leopard Förlag to support young writers from both Sweden and Africa. In 2007 Mankell donated circa 1.5 million Euros to a charitable organisation that looked after children in western Mozambique.

“There are too many people in the world who just sit and watch their money pile up, that is very hard for me to understand.” (Wikipedia)

The following year the University of St Andrews awarded Mankell an honorary degree “in recognition of his major contribution to literature and to the practical exercise of conscience.”

Death

Mankell announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer in 2014 and died a year later. After his death, the praise came thick and fast.

“He was one of the most important pioneers of Scandinavian crime literature, if not the most important.” ~ Jo Nesbø (The Guardian)

“[Mankell] was undoubtedly the single most important person involved in bringing Scandinavian crime fiction to the rest of the world”. ~ Yrsa Sigurdardottir (The Guardian)

However, Mankell probably put it best of all.

“When I was young, the only thing I was afraid of was getting old and turning around and seeing that I botched my life. But I’m happy with the life that has been.” (The Financial Times)