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The Eye of the Leopard

Henning Mankell Steven T. Murray

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Paperback

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English
Vintage
01 July 2009
From international bestseller Henning Mankell, a chilling psychological thriller that delves deep into the mind of a man lost in an unknown world

'Absorbing, chilling and dripping with evil atmosphere' The Times

Since his mother's disappearance, Hans Olofson has led an isolated life. When he loses his girlfriend in tragic circumstances, he decides to fulfil her dream- to visit the grave of a legendary missionary in Zambia.

On reaching Africa, Hans is struck by its beauty and mystery, and an opportunity of employment tempts him to stay. But he soon becomes embroiled in the issues of the local community. As relationships splinter and fray, Hans realises that his African dream is rapidly turning into a nightmare...
By:  
Translated by:  
Imprint:   Vintage
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm,  Spine: 19mm
Weight:   223g
ISBN:   9780099450153
ISBN 10:   0099450151
Pages:   320
Publication Date:  
Recommended Age:   From 0 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Henning Mankell is the prize-winning and internationally acclaimed author of the Inspector Wallander Mysteries, now dominating bestseller lists throughout Europe. He devotes much of his free time to working with Aids charities in Africa, where he is also director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo.

Reviews for The Eye of the Leopard

This previously untranslated novel from the Swedish author, best known for his Kurt Wallender mysteries, tells the complex story of a rootless Swede's perilous and disillusioning African experience.In juxtaposed parallel chapters, Mankell (Kennedy's Brain, 2007, etc.) vividly chronicles protagonist Hans Olofson's early years in rural Sweden, living with his alcoholic father during the 1950s, and Olofson's ordeal in Zambia in the early 1970s, whence he had relocated hoping to complete an odyssey that was only dreamed about by a boyhood acquaintance unable to make the journey herself. Young Hans, who seeks relief from his father's depressive rages (after Hans's mother had abandoned them) in friendships with a well-to-do older boy (Sture) and a young woman (Janine), facially disfigured in a surgical accident, loses both of them. He bullies Sture into an incapacitating misadventure, and has perhaps inadvertently driven Janine to suicide. Subsequently, determined to honor Janine's dream of service to Africa's suffering natives, he arrives in Zambia shortly before violence sparked by warring tribes claims the lives and property of well-meaning white settlers, and incarnates the indigenous myth of a leopard and crocodile locked together in unending mortal conflict. This image mocks the white man's fantasy of reclaiming a land with no future, and eventually drives Olofson away from the egg farm he had coincidentally acquired, and the destiny he had naively believed lay ahead of him. This impressive novel is intensely detailed and beautifully constructed, and it vibrates with a palpable and genuinely frightening sense of doom. But it suffers intermittently from the redundancy and slow pacing that likewise afflict Mankell's mystery novels.The tension never relaxes, and most readers will surely persevere through the final blood-soaked, despairing pages, which attain a truly mesmerizing power. (Kirkus Reviews)


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