A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
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Life and Works: Henning Mankell (born February 3, 1948) is an internationally known Swedish author of crime fiction, children's books as well as plays. Mankell was born in Stockholm, and grew up in the Swedish towns of Sveg (Härjedalen) and Borås (Västergötland). Mankell's father Ivar was a judge and his grandfather, also called Henning Mankell (1868–1930), was a composer. At the age of 20 he already started a career as author and assistant director at the Riks Theater in Stockholm. In the following years he collaborated with several theaters in Sweden. In 1985 he founded the Avenida Theater in Maputo, Mozambique, where he spends much of his time and gets inspiration for his work. Recently he built up his own publishing house (Leopard Förlag) in order to support young talents from Africa and Sweden. He is best known for the character Kurt Wallander, a fictional police inspector living and working in Ystad, Sweden. In the novels, he solves shocking murders with his colleagues. The novels have an underlying question: "What went wrong with Swedish society?" The series has won many awards, including the German Crime Prize, the 2001 CWA Gold Dagger for Sidetracked, and the Gumshoe Award for Best European Crime Novel for The Return of the Dancing Master. The final book, The Pyramid (short stories), is a collection of short stories about Wallander's past. The books about Kurt Wallander mysteries have been published in 33 countries and consistently top the bestseller lists in Europe, receiving major literary prizes and generating numerous international film and television adaptations. In 1981 the thriller The Death of a Sailor was issued. It is a novel about crooked buisness men who runs companies to their ruin and loots them for money, thus cheating the staff, leaving them without means. Henning Mankell always takes the less fortunate peoples' part, like Eivor in his novel Daisy Sisters, released in 1982. This novel has meant a great deal for Mankell. It is a story about two generations of working women in the era after the Second World War. The origin of the novel was a meeting with a group of female overhead crane drivers at a factory in Borlänge, Sweden. They met to discuss the difficult questions of today and Mankell took part. He was very impressed by the women and decided that he wanted to know and understand more about them and their situation. In his novel of 1984, The Tale of Isidor, Mankell takes the reader back to the nineteenth century in a story about the breaking point between "the old time" and the new. Isidor is a part of the old, and he fights for his right to live the life he is used to. In 1990 Mankell published the novel The Dog That Ran Towards a Star that was intended mainly for youth and children. The novels are about Joel and Ture and their relationship on their way to adulthood. At the same time, Mankell published a book about Joel as an adult, The Eye of the Leopard. This novel takes place in Africa and tells the story about Joel's first traumatic meeting with the continent. The third book about Joel, Shadows in Twilight, was published in 1991. In 1991 Mankell was awarded The Academy of Swedish Crime Writers' Prize for Faceless Killers. The book was also awarded the Scandinavian Crime Society's price "The Glass Key for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel" the same year. This is a story about crime; with the now so well known police superintendent Kurt Wallander. This novel was written in Mozambique, where Mankell had settled. In 1995 he focused again on children in his novels. Comédia Infantil is a story about children living in the streets of Maputo, Secrets in the Fire focuses on the situation of the children in the war-torn Mozambique, and especially on Sofia, a young girl and victim of a land mine. Sofia exists in real life. In 1996, another book about Joel was published. The Boy Who Slept With Snow in His Bed was awarded the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Prize. In the novel The Fifth Woman Kurt Wallander faces a series of murders executed by a meticulous prepared killer, looking for revenge. A Bridge to the Stars, the fourth and last book about Joel, is published in 1998. Joel is now 15 and is on the verge of adulthood. In June 2001 Mankell together with Dan Israel, former publisher at both Ordfront Publishing House and Norstedts Publishing House, started the new publishing house Leopard. Their device is: "Sweden is a country in dramatic change. We want to mirror that social change through our publication. Thus we will publish books on history, social debate and popular science. Novels are also an unsurpassed form to understand people, here in Sweden as well as around the world. Publishing of novels will hence be an important part of the publishing." Since then, Leopard is Henning Mankell's Swedish publishing house. He is married to Eva Bergman, daughter of Ingmar Bergman. |
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