Henning Mankell, Swedish author, died at 67

  Dead Famous

Henning Mankell, born on February 3, 1948 and died October 5, 2015, Henning was a Swedish crime writer, children’s author and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most famous creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander.

Henning was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948.

His parents divorced when he was one year old, and for a majority of his childhood lived with his father, Ivar, and an older sister.

The three lived first in Sveg (Härjedalen), where his father was a district judge, and later, Borås (Västergötland).

Henning’s grandfather, also named Henning Mankell (1868–1930), was a composer.

At the age of 20 Henning had already started a career as author and assistant director at the Riksteater in Stockholm.

In the following years he collaborated with several theaters in Sweden.

After living in Zambia and other African countries, Henning was invited to become the artistic director of Teatro Avenida in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.

He now spends at least half the year in Maputo working with the theater and writing.

Recently Henning built up his own publishing house (Leopard Förlag) in order to support young talents from Africa and Sweden.

He is married to Eva Bergman, daughter of Ingmar Bergman.

On 12 June 2008, Henning was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

Henning developed two original stories for the German police series Tatort.

Actor Axel Milberg, who portrays Inspector Klaus Borowski, had asked Henning to contribute to the show as the two were promoting The Chinaman audiobook, a project that Milberg had worked on.

The episodes were scheduled to broadcast in Germany in 2010.

Henning was set to work on a screenplay for Sveriges Television about his father-in-law, the famous movie and theater director Ingmar Bergman, during 2010, on a series produced in four one-hour episodes. Production was planned for 2011.

Henning pitched the project to Sveriges Television and will include international co-producers/financiers.

The plan is now to start filming in 2014 and publish the television series and a possible long film next year.

In January 2014 Henning told in public that he was diagnosed with cancer.

In May Henning reported that the treatments had worked well and he was getting better.

On 5 October 2015, Henning Mankell succumbed to the disease.