A decade after his last Inspector Wallander novel, Henning Mankell has brought back his most popular creation for a final encore.
Getty Images
It always starts with a question, says acclaimed Swedish writer Henning Mankell, his heavily accented voice resonating down the phone line. “In everything I write, there must be a question, there must be something I do not know, something I would like to find an answer to, something I would like to explore,” he says.
Whether it’s his internationally bestselling series of crime novels starring dogged and dour Inspector Wallander, his gripping stand-alone thrillers, his 40-plus radio and theatre plays, his socially conscious children’s stories or his atmospheric novels set in Africa, Mankell is always inspired by questions, by a need to tackle the things that concern him about society, about our modern world, about life.
But after nine Wallander novels during the 1990s that addressed issues such as the burgeoning anti-refugee sentiment in Sweden (Faceless Killers), what happens to people consigned to the margins of society (One Step Behind) and what happens when vigilantes distrust the justice system (The Fifth Woman), the inquisitive son of a small-town judge shelved his fictional detective.
“I really think that when I wrote the ninth book I felt enough was enough,” recalls Mankell. “I can put my hand on my heart to say that I really didn’t believe I would write anything more.”
Anything more about Wallander, that is – for Mankell has always been prolific, and post-Wallander he continued to create many other tales and work on many projects, often with a strong humanitarian or social focus, including the second and third instalments of his children’s trilogy about Sofia, an African girl who lost her legs when she stepped on a landmine, and I Die, But My Memory Lives On, a 2003 book raising awareness about Aids, with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
But then, several years later, another question started niggling at Mankell; a question only Wallander, who in the interim had soared in popularity and acclaim far beyond Swedish borders, could answer.
The result? A 10th and final Wallander novel, The Troubled Man. “Now, in all of the Wallander stories, there have been questions: why is this, how come this happened?” says Mankell. “And every one of these questions has been connected to a story, a case that Wallander must solve – with one exception. That is the last novel, The Troubled Man, where he himself is the question and the case.
“That is why I wrote it, actually, because I felt there was a book missing, and that’s where he was his own case. Where he in a way tried to find out about himself, his own life.
“And that is why it’s the only book that does not really have another issue, although I suppose there are things about the hypocrisy surrounding Swedish neutrality in this book, but basically it’s a story about him.”
In The Troubled Man, an ageing Wallander finds himself unofficially involved in an investigation into the disappearance of Håkan von Enke, a retired naval officer whose son is engaged to Wallander’s daughter, and who had seemed concerned by a controversial incident from Sweden’s past. Then von Enke’s wife also disappears, and Wallander finds his search entangled with espionage, betrayal and politically explosive new information about Sweden’s Cold War past.
At the same time, he is forced to review his own past, and confront his missteps and regrets.
“So this is also a story about getting old,” says Mankell, who turned 63 in February. “When you come up to the sixties, there is for most people a need to turn around a little and look at what you did with your life, and for many people that can be quite scary. Because many people have [wasted] away a lot of their lives, they haven’t done anything really with their dreams that they should have done.”
Not that Mankell could be accused of failing to live his dreams: after leaving school at 16 to join the merchant navy, he’d published his first novel by 24, and has been writing ever since.
For decades, he has split his time between Mozambique, where he writes and directs plays for the national theatre, and Europe. He’s politically active, involved in myriad social projects, from building houses and villages in Africa and India, to raising awareness about Aids (including a “memory books” project where dying parents record aspects of their lives in words and pictures for their young children), to being aboard the aid flotilla to Gaza that was violently boarded by the Israeli military last May.
Getty Images
He’s seen his books scoop awards, sell more than 30 million copies, and be adapted for Swedish and British television. Recently, it was reported that Kenneth Branagh, whom Mankell specifically approved for the role, would continue his Bafta Award-winning turn as Wallander for a third BBC series.
“I know that amongst all the privileges I have in my life, one is that I can turn around and very clearly, bluntly, say I am doing today what I was dreaming about when I was young. How many people can do that? I would say very few.”
Although he may not have Wallander’s sense of regret, there’s more to fear with advancing age than chances lost, says Mankell, noting that “maybe the most important thing” in The Troubled Man is something he shares with his detective.
“I’m not afraid of dying, but what scares me really, honestly, is that I one day, physically fit, will be told by myself or my wife, ‘Henning, you’re losing your mind.’ That scares the hell out of me.
“That scares Wallander, too. And that scares the people of the world, and I really wanted to write about the scary thing of getting a bit older, because that is what Wallander and I have in common, we have the same age.”
Not that Mankell is slowing down as he, like Wallander, moves from middle age towards senior citizen status. He’s in France for our interview, about to head to Mozambique for another season with Teatro Avenida, and the passion is clear in his voice as he talks about theatre. “Since I was very young, I am not only writing plays I have also sometimes been directing the theatre,” he says.
Mankell loves the collaborative nature of the art form, the contrast it gives him from his rather more solitary pursuit of novel writing. He wrote his first play, The Amusement Park – about Swedish colonial interests in 19th-century South America – in his early 20s while living in Stockholm. The week we speak, his play about Olof Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister assassinated 25 years ago, is broadcast repeatedly on radio to mark the anniversary. In between, he has written more than 40 plays, continuing a dramatic storytelling tradition that stretches back millennia.
In fact, when we discuss his crime and thriller writing, Mankell points out that critics who disparage the genre (“tell me something more I don’t give a shit about”) clearly don’t realise that modern crime writing is a continuation of “one of the oldest literary traditions that exists”, dating back to Ancient Greek tragedies such as Medea. It’s a tradition where diverse issues are explored via the prism of exciting, plot-based stories that capture audience attention.
“All through literary history, to put up a mirror of crime, to look at contradictions in society, is a very efficient way of telling a story. I try to work in that specific tradition and I do it because a crime plot can sometimes make things very clear in society or in contradictions between people, and inside people, too – between reality and dream.”
Mankell calls Shakespeare’s Macbeth “probably the best political crime story ever written”, and notes the underlying themes are still relevant today. “It’s a play about maybe one of those Gaddafi people; you could do a Macbeth about Gaddafi.”
Clearly, some of those questions Shakespeare explored – ambition, human frailty and the corruption of power – still fascinate writers, directors and audiences today. For the past 25 years, Mankell has been trying to address more of his own questions about the world by putting on thought-provoking plays as part of the creation of the first national professional theatre in Mozambique.
“Today, we are a quite successful theatre, and I have actors who could go onto any stage in the world and not make a fool out of themselves. It’s been a wonderful adventure and privilege to be part of that. I’m the only white person, but no one thinks about that. I’m one of them, and that’s wonderful.”
Getty Images
Mankell says he loves spending several months in Africa every year for the same reasons he first visited the continent more than 40 years ago. “I always had a very strong interest in the African continent for the simple fact that the human species came out of Africa, it is the cradle of human beings, and I believe that made it specifically interesting for me. I wanted to see the world from outside the European egocentricity. I believe that by living with one foot in the sand and one in the snow I get to understand better, more profoundly, about the human condition of the world, the way people are living. And this is the main reason for me to live the way I live.”
THE TROUBLED MAN, by Henning Mankell (Harvill Secker, $39.99).