Henning Mankell

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For the composer (1900–1930), see Henning Mankell (composer).

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Henning Mankell
Henning Mankell 3 2011 Shankbone.jpg
Mankell in New York in 2011
Born (1948-02-03)3 February 1948
Stockholm, Sweden
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Gothenburg, Sweden
Occupation Novelist, playwright, publisher
Genre Crime fiction
Thriller
Notable works The Kurt Wallander novels
Website
www.henningmankell.com

Henning Georg Mankell (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈhɛnˈnɪŋ ˈmaŋːkɛl]; 3 February 1948 – 5 October 2015) was a Swedish crime writer, children's author, and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most noted creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander. He was also a social critic and activist.

Life and career

Mankell's grandfather, also named Henning Mankell, lived from 1868 to 1930 and was a composer.[1]

Mankell was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948. His father Ivar was a lawyer who divorced his mother when Mankell was one year old. He and an older sister lived with his father for most of his childhood. The three lived first in Sveg, Härjedalen in the north of Sweden, where his father was a district judge. Henning's website biography describes this time living in a flat above the court as one of the happiest in his life.[2] In Sveg, a museum was built in his honour during his lifetime.[3]

Later, when Mankell was thirteen, the family moved to Borås, Västergötland on the west coast of Sweden near Gothenburg.[2] After three years he dropped out of school and went to Paris when he was 16. Shortly afterwards he joined the merchant marine and went and then to sea, where he worked on a freighter and "loved the ship’s decent hard-working community.[2]" In 1966, he returned to Paris to become a writer. He took part in the student uprising of 1968. He later returned to work as a stagehand in Stockholm.[3] At the age of 20 he had already started as author and assistant director at the Riksteater in Stockholm.[citation needed] In the following years he collaborated with several theatres in Sweden. His first play, The Amusement Park dealt with Swedish colonialism in South America.[2]

In 1973, he published The Stone Blaster, a novel about the Swedish labour movement, and flew to Guinea-Bissau on the proceeds. Africa became a second home to him, and he spent a great deal of his life there, after his success made it possible, founding and then running a theatre in Mozambique.[2]

After living in Zambia and other African countries, Mankell was invited from 1986 onward to become the artistic director of Teatro Avenida in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. He subsequently spent extended periods in Maputo working with the theatre and writing, and built up his own publishing house (Leopard Förlag) in order to support young talents from Africa and Sweden.[4] His novel Chronicler of the Winds, published in Sweden as Comédie infantil in 1995, reflects African problems and is based on African storytelling.[5]

On 12 June 2008, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of St Andrews in Scotland “in recognition of his major contribution to literature and to the practical exercise of conscience”.[6]

Around 2008 Mankell developed two original stories for the German police series Tatort. Actor Axel Milberg, who portrays Inspector Klaus Borowski, had asked Mankell to contribute to the show as the two were promoting The Chinaman audiobook, a project that Milberg had worked on. The episodes were scheduled to broadcast in Germany in 2010.[7][8]

In 2010, Mankell was set to work on a screenplay for Sveriges Television about his father-in-law, the movie and theatre director Ingmar Bergman, on a series produced in four one-hour episodes. Mankell pitched the project to Sveriges Television and production was planned for 2011.[9] At the time of his death, Mankell had written over 40 novels that had sold more than 40 million copies worldwide.[10]

Personal life

Mankell was married four times and had four sons by different relationships (Thomas, Marius, Morten and Jon). In 1998 he married Eva Bergman, daughter of film director Ingmar Bergman.[3]

Death

In January 2014, Mankell announced that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and throat cancer.[11] In May 2014, he reported that treatments had worked well and he was getting better.[12]

He wrote a series of articles inspired by his wife Eva, describing his situation, how it felt to be diagnosed,[13] how it felt to be supported,[14] how it felt to wait,[15] and after his first chemotherapy at Sahlgrenska Hospital about the importance of cancer research.[16] Three weeks before his death he wrote about what happens to people’s identity when they are stricken by a serious illness[17] His last post was published posthumously October 6.[18]

On 5 October 2015, Mankell died at the age of 67 almost three years after having been diagnosed.[19]

Political views

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We refuse to understand what a big meaning Islamic culture has had in Europe's history. What would Europe have been without Islamic culture? Nothing.

Henning Mankell, Dagbladet, 30 August 2007 (talking about his play Lampedusa which tells about a Muslim lesbian immigrant in Sweden)[20]

In his youth Mankell was a left-wing political activist and participated in the Protests of 1968 in Sweden, protesting against, among other things, the Vietnam War, the Portuguese Colonial War, and the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Furthermore, he got involved with Folket i Bild/Kulturfront which focused on cultural policy studies.[21]

In the 1970s, Mankell moved from Sweden to Norway and lived with a Norwegian woman who was a member of the Maoist Workers' Communist Party. He took an active part in their activities but did not join the party.[22]

In 2002 Mankell gave financial support by buying stocks for 50,000 NOK in the Norwegian left-wing newspaper Klassekampen.[23][24]

In 2009, Mankell was a guest at the Palestine Festival of Literature. He said he had seen "repetition of the despicable Apartheid system that once treated Africans and coloured as second-class citizens in their own country". He found a resemblance between the Israeli West Bank barrier and the Berlin Wall: "The wall that is currently dividing the country will prevent future attacks, in short term. In the end, it will face the same destiny as the wall that once divided Berlin did."[25] Considering the environment the Palestinian people live in, he continued: "Is it strange that some of them in pure desperation, when they cannot see any other way out, decide to become suicide bombers? Not really? Maybe it is strange that there are not more of them."[25]

Mankell stated in an interview with Haaretz that he did not support Hezbollah.[26] In Mankell's opinion the state of Israel should not have a future as a two-state solution and this "will not be the end of the historical occupation". He said he did not encounter antisemitism during his journey, just "hatred against the occupants that is completely normal and understandable", and said that "to keep these two things separate is crucial".[25]

Gaza flotilla

Mankell in 2009

In 2010, Henning Mankell was on board the MS Sofia, one of the boats which took part in the flotilla which tried to break the Israeli embargo of the Gaza strip.[27] Following the Israel Defense Forces' boarding of the flotilla on the morning of May 31, 2010, Mankell was deported to Sweden. He subsequently called for global sanctions against Israel.[28] In 2010 it was reported that he was considering halting Hebrew translations of his books.[29] In June 2011, Mankell stated in an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that he had never considered preventing his books from being translated into Hebrew, and that unidentified persons had stolen his identity to make this false claim.[26]

Mankell was supposed to be one of twenty Swedish participants in "Freedom Flotilla II" which never took place.[30] It was originally scheduled to sail to Gaza in June 2011.[31]

Charity

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"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."

Henning Mankell[32]

In 2007, Henning Mankell donated 15 million Swedish crowns (about 1.5 million euros) to SOS Children's Villages for a children's village in Chimoio in western Mozambique.[33] Mankell has donated vast amounts of money to charitable organizations like SOS Children's Villages and Hand in Hand,[34] a collection of independent organizations.[35]

In the 1980s, Mankell visited United Nations refugee camps in Mozambique and later accompanied UN High Commissioner Sadako Ogata to refugee camps in South Africa. In 2013 he visited Congolese refugees in Uganda. He has written on the plight of refugees and after his death his web site asked for donations in his name to the UN Commission on Refugees.[36]

Bibliography

Crime fiction

Kurt Wallander

Kurt Wallander is a fictional police inspector living and working in Ystad,[37] Sweden. In the novels, he solves shocking murders with his colleagues. The novels have an underlying question: "What went wrong with Swedish society?"[38] The series has won many awards, including the German Crime Prize and the British 2001 CWA Gold Dagger for Sidetracked. The ninth book, The Pyramid, is a prequel: a collection of five novellas (Wallander's First Case, The Man with the Mask, The Man on the Beach, The Death of the Photographer, The Pyramid) about Wallander's past, with the last one ending just before the start of Faceless Killers. Ten years after The Pyramid, Mankell published another Wallander novel, The Troubled Man, which he said would definitely be the last in the series.[39]

Linda Wallander

Linda is the daughter of Kurt Wallander, who follows in his footsteps as a police officer. Mankell began an intended trilogy of novels with her as the protagonist. However, following the suicide of Johanna Sällström, the actress playing the character at the time in the Swedish TV series, Mankell was so distraught that he decided to abandon the series after only the first novel.[43]

Others

Henning Mankell talks about The Man from Beijing on Bookbits radio.

Other fiction

Children's books

Books about Sofia

Joel Gustafsson series

  • A Bridge to the Stars – 2005 (sv (Hunden som sprang mot en stjärna) – 1990)
  • Shadows in the Twilight – 2007 (Skuggorna växer i skymningen – 1991)
  • When the Snow Fell – 2007 (Pojken som sov med snö i sin säng – 1996)
  • The Journey to the End of the World – 2008 (sv (Resan till världens ände) – 1998)

For younger children

  • The Cat Who Liked Rain – 2007

Film and television

Mankell wrote original screenplays for television.

  • Etterfølgeren (1997)[44]
  • Labyrinten (2000) TV mini-series
  • sv (Talismanen) (2003) TV mini-series (co-written with Jan Guillou)
  • Unnamed Ingmar Bergman docudrama (2012) TV mini-series[45]

Plays

Film and television adaptations

Awards and honours

See also

References

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  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ http://www.klassekampen.no/30296/article/item/null/et-ensomt-fartoey
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  37. ↑ pronounced Ue-stad ("ue" as in "muesli" and "a" as in "father" – not pronounced as in the recent 2008 UK television adaptation)
  38. ↑ The Pyramid'
  39. ↑ Wroe, Nicholas (20 February 2010). "A Life in writing: Henning Mankell". The Guardian.
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ http://www.newsdesk.se/pressroom/leopard/pressrelease/view/ny-kurt-wallander-roman-slaepps-i-augusti-289969
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  45. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  46. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  47. ↑ http://www.henningmankell.se/Teater/Pjäser

External links

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