Celebrity Biographies
Henningmankell
He was the greatest exponent of the ‘boom’ of Scandinavian black literature, which has not yet ceased. The Swedish writer Henning Mankell has died in Goteborg, at the age of 67, as a result of lung cancer, with metastasis in the nape of the neck, which he had suffered for a long time, as he himself revealed in his emotional and serene book “Quicksand”.
Born on February 3, 1948 in the Swedish capital, Henning Mankell was the son of a judge, but his artistic vocation came from his grandfather, a composer and pianist with whom he shared the same name. He left school at the age of 16 to join a merchant ship. When he returned to Stockholm, at 19, he made his acting debut with the Riksteatern, the Swedish National Theatre. Dazzled by the power of words, he wrote the play “Popular Fair” for this company, which was performed with great success.
As an author, he has worked in various genres, for example youth literature, in the Joel Gustafsson saga, which began with “The dog that ran towards a star”, or the essay, in “I will die, but my memory will survive”, on AIDS in Africa, a continent that fascinated him to such an extent that he lived halfway between his native country and Mozambique, and wrote various titles dedicated to him, such as “The Secret of Fire”, which began a trilogy about the difficulties of Sofia, a young African .
But internationally he triumphed above all with the series of police inspector Kurt Wallander, started in 1991 with “Assassins without a face”. The character appeared in 12 titles, one of them, “Before it freezes”, with his daughter Linda as the protagonist. They were characterized by their well-spun mystery plots, but in reality these were an excuse to unravel what was hidden in the apparent peacefulness of the Nordic countries, and also to describe the changes in modern Europe, which the protagonist does not understand, so he He is convinced that he should retire.
“Wallander and I don’t look much alike,” he said in an interview. “We only have three things in common: the same age, we like Italian opera and we work a lot.” In Spain, he was awarded the Pepe Carvalho prize, for the best crime novel author, in homage to Manuel Vázquez Montalbán , in 2007.
It sold 40 million copies worldwide and put Nordic Literature on the map. The saga first gave rise to a 1995 Swedish miniseries, starring Rolf Lassgård , who also played him in several movies and TV movies, such as The Dogs of Riga , a film version of one of the best installments, or Hot on their heels . In 2005, Swedish television shot another version again, this time with Krister Henriksson , more appropriate to bring the character to life.
But the most convincing actor as the inspector internationally was an Englishman, Kenneth Branagh , who starred in Wallander , a higher-quality BBC production, despite the fact that the novels’ complex plots had to be pared down too much.
Henning Mankell himself devised a chapter for the hit series Crime Scenery . The Swedish film unknown in the rest of the world Children’s Comedy , covered his homonymous book about a boy from Mozambique. There are other telefilms and miniseries based on his works, although there is no round that does him justice at the moment.
And that he was married to Eva, daughter of the most prestigious film director that his country has produced, Ingmar Bergman . He is also survived by their son, Jon. The news of his death has been given by the Leonhart publishing house, founded by himself with Dan Israel.