Comédia infantil

by Henning Mankell

Paper Book, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

839.7374

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Helsingissä : Otava, 2006

Description

Fantasy. Fiction. Literature. HTML: From the bestselling author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries: An "uplifting . . . grittily realistic" fable about war-torn Africa and a mystical orphan boy (The New York Times) A single gunshot cracks the silence of a hot African night. On the rooftop of a local theater company, a ten-year-old boy slowly dies of bullet wounds. He is Nelio, a leader of street kids, rumored to be a healer and a prophet, and possessed of a strangely ancient wisdom. One of the millions of poor people "forced to eat life raw," Nelio refuses to be taken to the hospital. Instead, he tells the unforgettable story of his life to a sole witness. Over the course of nine nights, a baker named Jos� Antonio listens as bandits cruelly raze Nelio's village, propelling him to join the legions of abandoned children living in the streets. A grand act of imagination intended to prove to his comrades that existence must be more than mere survival, cuts Nelio's life short. As the tale unfolds, Jos� is forever changed. He becomes the Chronicler of Winds, vowing to reveal Nelio's magical words to all who will listen. Short-listed for the Nordic Council Prize for Literature and nominated for the Swedish Publishers Association's August Prize, Chronicler of Winds is a beautifully crafted novel that is a testament to the power of storytelling itself. "Mankell writes eloquently of the realities of poverty and violence without becoming sugary or didactic. . . . An expert craftsman" (The Observer, London)..… (more)

Media reviews

literaturkritik.de

Henning Mankells Roman verbindet den brutalen Überlebenskampf weiter Teile der afrikanischen Bevölkerung mit mythisch anmutenden Legenden der Ureinwohner. Ganz nebenbei liefert er auch einen stimmigen Einblick in die schwankende Gefühlslage seiner Figuren, die durch die häufig wechselnden

politischen Machtverhältnisse und die Überbleibsel der blutigen Kolonialherrschaft jegliche Orientierung verloren haben. Aus Voltaires "Candide" hat Mankell seinem Roman das Zitat vorangestellt:"Wenn dies die beste aller Welten ist, wie müssen dann erst die anderen sein?" Nicht oft treffen leitmotivische Sprüche so exakt ins Herz der Handlung.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini

Kind of a funny one. It fronts like it wants to play or pastiche with magic realism, and you're a bit like "Uh, but everything turns out to have such an (un-magically) real explanation."

And then it turns out that's sort of the point, and our narrator gets all half-Christlike, half-ruined with his

determination to redeem the pain of street kids and Africa and existence backhandedly and call it duty, give himself the "Chronicler of the Winds" title and all . . . but it's not fucking enough, and Henkell knows it, and the narrator knows it too, and certainly Nelio knows it, and makes the best stand ever with the other kids and their stage show at the end.

And it's not enough either, but like the narrator's gesture, it's something. This book is almost a response to "Life is Beautiful" in that sense, but instead of a "Leave 'em laughing," a (to grossly mischaracterize that not-terrible movie) "Wokka wokka wokka," it leaves you with beauty and whimsy and sadness and anger. And he even earns my forgiveness for being like "This is Africa, look upon it, because, like, it IS, and we SHOULD, and who cares if it's some Swedish crime writer that makes it so? Good for him. And hell, unsettled spirits are as good, or as poor, as any other explanation for that continent's terrors. Hopefully one day we learn how to put them to rest.

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LibraryThing member kellynasdeo

This books was one of the most sweet and endearing books I've ever read. It was beautifully written & translated.

LibraryThing member gilly1944

A beautifully written almost poetic story set in Southern Africa. A sad and wistfull story that keeps you inside another world.
Excellent.

LibraryThing member RobinDawson

Seemed quite interesting at first, but my interest progressively declined because the characters were not plausible, not fully rounded.

The story serves the Mankell's moral purpose ie to arouse public awareness and concern for the poor youth of Africa - but the result is not a great piece of

fiction.

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LibraryThing member Esta1923

Picked up quite by chance at library. This is a beautiful book about a sad sad situation. Although it is fiction there are groups of street children all over the world and Manning perhaps gives us a chance to live with them for a while.

LibraryThing member marge3

A very fascinating and in the same way a really horrible story about a 10 year old street children, Nelio. He's lying on a roof, dying. But before he dies, he's telling a story, the story of his short life

LibraryThing member elleceetee

This book starts out a little slow, but picks up speed. It's written by a swedish author about the happenings in an unnamed town in an unnamed country in Africa about characters with vaguely spanish sounding names and told in a style similar to a someone like Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. The book is

about the lives of a street kid named Nelio. He is shot and tells his story to a baker - a story that starts in a small village, but takes him across the African countryside (in the company of an albino dwarf with an empty suitcase) to live in the big city, where he eventually becomes the leader of one of the gangs of street kids. It's an interesting story and well told. A quick read.

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LibraryThing member devenish

In an unnamed African country in a small village,lives a five year old boy. Nelio is a perfectly ordinary little boy whose life is changed forever when a group of bandits attack the village. Taken captive,he finally kills one of the leaders of the gang and escapes. Various adventures ensue until he

enters a city and becomes leader of a group of street urchins.
Gun-shots are heard one night and the badly wounded Nelio is found by a local baker,who takes him to the roof of a nearby building to try to help him.
The main body of the book is about Nelio's story of his all to short life and he tells the baker that when his story is told,then he will die.
Well told,this is a story that will stay with you for some time.

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