Chronicler Of The Winds [Kindle Edition]

And now for something completely different. Crime writer Henning Mankell (most of whose output is not actually crime fiction) has produced an unpretensious, magical little fable of african street-life that's as full of the small joys of personal life as it is its tragedies and sadnesses. It's completely different, really, to the wallander crime novels, the only similarity being a slightly suspenseful air - not a major one, as that's not really the main aim of the novel, but Mankell's natural instinct for suspense does seem to press through the story.

The narrator of the story is Jose Antonio Maria Vaz, a baker in an unnamed African city. One day he finds Nelio, a street urchin notorious and almost legendary among the city's people, shot and bleeding in the theatre adjoinging the bakery. As instructed, he carried Nelio up on to the roof of the theatre and lays him on a makeshift bed. As he lies dying on the roof, weakening slowly, Nelio tells Jose the story of his remarkable life over the series of nights he has left to live. A life full of tragedy - and full of flourishes of imaginative brilliance on Mankell's part - which forced Nelio to witness the death of his mother by invading barbarians, to flee the village of his youth, and embark upon a remarkable journey to the city, where he joins a colourful and charming band of steet urchins. And finally, Nelio reveals to Jose how he comes to be wounded and dying.

Oh yes, the story's riddled with implausibilities and unlikelihoods, but that's not the point. It's not supposedto be especially realistic, it's supposed to be fantastic, a story full of imagination that shows how important stories and storytelling are to us, how important is fantasy, story, narrative, triumph, imagined grandeur, to the human race. the entire history of literature the world over is chock full of tomes that demonstrate how important stories and imagination are to human existence, and this is another one of those.

It's creatively and imaginatively brilliant, it's very moving, it's very charming. It's oddly romantic, too: Nelio refuses to be taken hispital where he could be saved, but demands to tell Jose his story and resigns himself to deaht which, yes, is unnecessary. It's all part of Nelio's own rather fancy view of his own narrative, and Mankell's way of showing that any individual has the power to wrest some control of their own story and add a little romance, bravura, nobility (even if strictly unnecessary) if they so wish.

I read the book in just a day. i was enchanted by it. It's not perfect (Nelio never sounds like the ten year-old he is supposed to be, for one), but that's not the point. It's not about plausibility or Mankell trying to create an infallibly realistic picture of life in Africa (though he does in fact manage to give a realistic portrait of tragic lives, depsite their fantastical imaginative flourishes), it's a story about imagination and stories, it holds to the oldest traditions of storytelling in that respect: it sings the achievements of a human being, of a life maybe striken by poverty but certainly not that of the imagination or of adventures. it's incredibly sad at times, but it's also very heart-warming. A wonderful little book, and a fantastic story. That's what it is, and that's all it wants to be.

This is a totally absorbing tale told through the eyes of a naive baker of poor and dispossessed children in a war torn but unnamed African city. Some books just suck you in and don't leave you alone until well after the final page is read. This is just such a story. It is difficult to reconcile this tale with the inventor of Kurt Wallender. It shows the breadth of Mankell's writing and the brilliance of the translation. A really good read

Set in an un-named African country, though one can infer from the author's personal connections and the names of the characters, that this is Mozambique. The civil war background and the atrocities that destroyed Nelio's family are based on the realities of the country's first 20 years of independence, when bandits destroyed the infrastructure and killed Government officials in the countryside, to intimidate villagers and undermine the credibility of the Frelimo governmment. Mankell does not exaggerate - this did happen.

The book itself reminds the reader of recent novels by Allende and other Latin American authors: there is an atmosphere of magic and fantasy as Nelio and his gang of street urchins survive in the city (recognisably Maputo). The episode of the dead lizards is both charming and comic, lightening the tragic note of the narrative.

Mankell employs his ability to create tension (evident in the Wallander series) that builds up as each day advances. Nelio dies, that we know. The reason for his death, and the circumstances in which it happens, is revealed in the final day of his life when he comes to the end of his narrative. Without saying anything more, the reader may feel let down when all is revealed but it is not out of line with Africa's general experience since decolonisation.

There are weaknesses. Yes, as some have commented, the 10 year-old Nelio seems very precocious, even as a street-wise operator, but his level of knowledge is part of the overall mystical tone of the novel. There are digressions about the narrator, Vaz, and that last relic of the colonial period, the nonagenerian owner of the bakery that are colourful but redundant. And there are lots of questions that arise from Nelio's actions, and the behaviour of others: but then, as a fable, the novel tells basic truths about the human condition and that is really what matters.

A PS: if the novel manages to attract attention to Mozambique and its attemts to recover from over three decades of strife, in the way McCall Smith has towards Botswana, it will have done a considerable service.