Man from Beijing (Mankell)

Author Bio 
• Birth—February 3, 1948
• Where—Stockholm, Sweden
• Education—Hogre Allmana Laroverket, Boras 
• Awards—Swedish Crime Writers' Academy-Best Swedish Crime Novel Award (twice);
   Nils Holgersson Prize; Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel; Deutscher
   Jugendliteraturpreis; Crime Writers' Assn.-Gold Dagger; Gumshow Award for
   Best European Crime Novel
• Currently—lives in Sweden and Maputo, Mozambique

Best known for his series of police procedurals featuring the adventures of Swedish detective Kurt Wallander—selling over 10 million copies worldwide—Henning Mankell has become a mystery master garnering critical acclaim in both the U.K. and U.S. (From the publisher.)

More
Mankell was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and grew up in Sveg (Harjedalen) and Boras (Vastergotland). 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 his youth Mankell was a left-wing political activist and a strong opponent of the Vietnam War, South African apartheid and Portugal's colonial war in Mozambique. In the 1970s Mankell moved from Sweden to Norway and lived with a Norwegian woman who was a member of the Maoist Communist Labor Party of Norway. Mankell took part in the party's activities but never himself joined the party.

After living in Zambia and other African countries, Henning Mankell was invited to become the artistic director of Teatro Avenida in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. He now spends at least half the year in Maputo working with the theatre and writing. Recently he built up his own publishing house (Leopard Förlag) in order to support young talents from Africa and Sweden.

He is married to Eva Bergman, daughter of Ingmar Bergman. On 12 June 2008 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

Mankell recently donated 15 million Swedish kronor to SOS Children's Villages for a village for homeless children in Mozambique. Mankell has said he's giving away half of his income to charitable causes.

Books, plays, screenplays
Mankell has written 10 crime novels with Kurt Wallender, his fictional police inspector who lives and works in Ystad, Sweden. The novels center on an underlying question: "What went wrong with Swedish society?" The series has won numerous awards (see above). The ninth book, The Pyramid, is a prequel: a collection of four novellas about Wallander's past, 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.

The Wallender series has been adapted into television mini-series in Sweden and the UK's BBC.

In addition to the Wallender series, Mankell has written more than 15 works of fiction, including, four other crime novels. He has also written works for children, including two series—the Sofia books and the Joel Gustafsson series.

Mankell is also a prolific playwright and screen writer with 40 some plays to his name (20 of which have been released) and four screenplays, which include three tv mini-series.

Global politics
Mankell 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 the society Folket i Bild/Kulturfront which focused on cultural policy studies. During his stay in Norway, he got in contact with the Norwegian Workers' Communist Party and took an active part in their actions.

In 2009, Mankell was a guest at a Palestinian literary conference. Thereafter, he claimed to have seen "repetition of the despicable Apartheid system that once treated Africans and coloured as second-class citizens in their own country". He also found a resemblance between the Israeli West Bank barrier and the Berlin Wall. Considering the environment the Palestinian people live in, he continued, it is not astonishing that "some decide to become suicide bombers....it is strange that there are not more of them". "The Israelis" would "destroy lives" and the Israeli State is not to have a future in its current form, as a two-state solution would not reverse the "historical occupation". He claimed not to have encountered antisemitism during his journey, just "hatred against the occupants that is completely normal and understandable".

In 2008, speaking about nationalism and Norway (a country formerly forced into a Union with Sweden), he stated that "Nationalism is almost spiteful in nature. It can sometimes be glimpsed as something brown behind the waving Norwegian flags." (Adapted from Wikipedia.)