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| The Shadow Girls : A Novel
ISBN: 9781595588449
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / New Press, The
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Literature; Fiction;
The darkly absurdist humor in bestselling Swedish novelist Mankell's novel comes from an original blend of cheerful satire, metafiction, and earnest social messaging. Jesper Humlin is a poet who is moderately successful professionally and mostly hapless personally. His girlfriend, Andrea, is pressuring him to have a baby, his editor has decided (and publically announced) that Humlin's next book will be a "crime thriller," and his elderly mother is running a phone sex service. Cleverly, everyone Humlin encounters, including his mother, stockbroker, and a writerly frenemy, has casually decided to write a crime novel, while Humlin, after a chance encounter with Nigerian refugee "Tea-Bag," resists his editor's demands in favor of exposing the plight of international refugees. Humlin then teaches writing to Tea-Bag; Leyla, an Iranian immigrant with a highly protective family; and Tanya, a silent Russian pickpocket. Hearing their stories ignites Humlin's passion to do something meaningful, but his lofty ideas don't align with his subjects, illuminating some prescient issues of the immigrant narrative. At turns absurdly amusing and genuinely touching, Mankell's latest novel (after The Troubled Man) will be a new twist for fans of his Kurt Wallander mysteries and an enjoyable outing for fans of more literary fare. Agent: Anneli Hoier, Leonhardt & Hoier. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm, Sweden on February 3, 1948. He left secondary school at the age of 16 and worked as a merchant seaman. While working as a stagehand, he wrote his first play, The Amusement Park. His first novel, The Stone Blaster, was released in 1973. His other works included The Prison Colony that Disappeared, Daisy Sisters, The Eye of the Leopard, The Man from Beijing, Secrets in the Fire, The Chronicler of the Wind, Depths, and I Die, But My Memory Lives On. He also wrote the Kurt Wallander series, which have been adapted for film and television, and the Joel Gustafson Stories series. A Bridge to the Stars won the Rabén and Sjögren award for best children's book of the year. He was committed to the fight against AIDS. He helped build a village for orphaned children and devoted much of his spare time to his "memory books" project, where parents dying from AIDS are encouraged to record their life stories in words and pictures. He was also among the activists who were attacked and arrested by Israeli forces as they tried to sail to the Gaza strip with humanitarian supplies in June 2010. He died from cancer on October 5, 2015 at the age of 67. (Bowker Author Biography) |
