Snapshots in History: October 5: Remembering Henning Mankell
October 13, 2015 | John P. | Comments (0)
Readers of Nordic noir (or Scandinavian noir) crime fiction should remember the contributions of Swedish author Henning Mankell (Born: February 3, 1948 at Stockholm, Sweden). Known as the creator of detective Kurt Wallander, Mankell died from cancer on October 5, 2015 at Göteborg, Sweden. Mankell wrote 40 novels, 11 of which featured the character detective Kurt Wallander, and sold more than 40 million copies worldwide that were published in more than 40 languages. The Wallander journey began with Faceless Killers (first published in 1991 and translated into English in 1997) and ended with The Troubled Man (first published in 2009) in which Wallander left the police force due to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
In fact, the author had grown tired of his famous character even though many of his readers and reviewers had not. Others came to enjoy the Wallander character in Swedish-language movies and television adaptations (in which Wallander was portrayed by Rolf Lassgård and Krister Henriksson) and the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) English-language television production (in which Wallander was portrayed by Kenneth Branagh). Read what author Ian Rankin had to say about Henning Mankell in the October 10, 2015 issue of The Guardian.
Henning Mankell devised the Kurt Wallander character following his return to Sweden after a lengthy stay in Mozambique. His progressive perspective came through in his writing with critiques towards rich people as well as Christianity but with a trust in widespread goodness in ordinary people. For a timeline of the Kurt Wallander series, please click here to see the books listed by English language title cross-referenced with the original Swedish language publication date. For those of you interested in Henning Mankell’s other works (standalone non-Wallander crime novels), please click here to review the title list.
Consider the following selected Henning Mankell items for borrowing from Toronto Public Library collections:
Kurt Wallander:
Books:
eBooks:
Audiobooks:
eAudiobooks:
Talking Books:
Rather watch and listen to Wallander than read about him? Then consider borrowing these DVD sets:
DVDs:
Kenneth Branagh:
Rolf Lassgård:
Other Works:
Books:
eBooks:
eAudiobooks:
Audiobooks:
Talking Books:
