The Eye of the Leopard, Henning Mankell
The Eye of the Leopard, Henning Mankell
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The Eye of the Leopard
A Novel

Author: Henning Mankell

Narrator: Saul Reichlin

Unabridged: 11 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/12/2022

Synopsis

Interweaving past and present, Sweden and Zambia, The Eye of the Leopard draws on bestselling author Henning Mankell's deep understanding of the two worlds he has inhabited for more than twenty years.

Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia not long after independence, hoping to fulfill the missionary dream of his friend Janice. He is also fleeing the traumas of his motherless childhood: his father's alcoholism, his best friend's terrible accident, Janice's death, his fear of an ordinary and stifled fate. Africa is a terrible shock, yet he stays and makes it his home. But he never fully comes to understand his place as a mzungu, a wealthy white man among native blacks, and the fragile truce between them. Rumors of an underground army of revolutionaries wearing leopard skins warn him that the truce is in danger of rupturing.

Alternating between Hans's years in Africa and those in Sweden, The Eye of the Leopard is a bravura achievement and a study in contrasts—black and white, poor and wealthy, Africa and Europe—both sinister and elegiac.

About Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell's novels have been translated into forty-five languages and have sold more than forty million copies worldwide. He was the first winner of the Ripper Award and also received the Glass Key and the Crime Writers' Association Golden Dagger, among other awards. His Kurt Wallander Mysteries have been adapted into a PBS television series starring Kenneth Branagh. During his life, Mankell divided his time between Sweden and Mozambique, where he was artistic director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. He died in 2015.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Junying on August 13, 2013

I have never been to Africa. Yet somehow I feel like as if I have been. Swedish Writer, Henning Mankell took me on a journey to discover that amazing continent, like no other. He showed me the landscape of Africa, more specifically that of Zambia, her people, her culture and customs, corruption and w......more

Goodreads review by Steven on November 19, 2011

"The Eye of the Leopard" is the first Henning Mankell book in which his brooding analyses of Sweden, presented in his detective novels, are connected fully to his books set in Africa. Hans Olofson is a young working-class Swede who, almost by chance, shifts himself to Zambia and ends up living there......more

Goodreads review by Justin on May 01, 2013

I spent a year in Zambia, in Kitwe Central Hospital from'75 to '76. I had no real idea of any rumblings of dissatisfaction and ultimate murderous rampages as described in the book. My friends (also docs from Belfast) were in Ndola and I would go on my Suzuki 70cc to see them once in a while. Coming......more

Goodreads review by James on December 15, 2020

Eye of the Leopard is the story of a Swedish man. The story is told in parallel, skipping back and forth between his teen years in Sweden and his mid-20s, early 30s as he arrives in Zambia initially for a short visit but ends up staying many years. I have mixed feelings about this book. It was great......more

Goodreads review by Patricia on May 18, 2008

The Eye of the Leopard is a book that will stay with you to ponder long after you have read the last page. The life of Hans Olafson, both in Sweden and later in Africa, is one to be envied as well as pitied. Hans lived with his father in Sweden and suffered through his father’s drunken bouts. His go......more

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