---
name: "Henning Mankell"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/henning-mankell"
fi1m_id: "henning-mankell"
imdb_id: "nm0542520"
tmdb_id: 135606
wikidata_id: "Q193346"
roles: ["Writer"]
born: "3 February 1948"
died: "5 October 2015"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-10-07T15:00:28.714084+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Henning Mankell

## Identity

Henning Mankell

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/henning-mankell
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** henning-mankell
- **IMDb ID:** nm0542520
- **TMDB ID:** 135606
- **Wikidata ID:** Q193346
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henning_Mankell, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q193346, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0542520/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/135606

Writer. Born 3 February 1948 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. Died 5 October 2015.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer
- **Born:** 3 February 1948, Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden
- **Died:** 5 October 2015
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henning_Mankell, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q193346, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0542520/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/135606

## Coming up

- *Wallander - Steget efter* (2026-11-14), Characters

## Streaming the US now

- **Apple TV:** [*Wallander*](https://film.one/tv/wallander.md) (76)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Henning Mankell

> Mankell wrote crime novels to ask what was going wrong in Sweden, and handed the asking to a tired policeman in a small coastal town. On screen the policeman has lasted better than the questions, and that is why the adaptations are good rather than important.

Kurt Wallander does not sleep. He eats standing up, when he eats, his daughter rings to check he is alive, and his father is losing his memory in a farmhouse full of his own paintings. Henning Mankell gave him all of that before he gave him a case, and every adaptation has kept it, because it is the part that works. The cases change. The man with the bad diet and the worse conscience does not.

Mankell came to crime late and sideways. He published his first novel in 1973, spent most of the next two decades in the theatre, and only sat down to *Faceless Killers* (1991) because he wanted to write about racism and decided a murder was the plainest way to do it. He then wrote roughly a Wallander a year until *The Pyramid* (1999), a collection of early cases, stopped, and came back once for *The Troubled Man* (2009), which is about ageing and memory more than about a crime. The prose is direct and unshowy, mostly procedure and daily detail, and *Sidetracked* (1995) is the one where the town and the weather come through strongest. Readers who find him plodding are not wrong. The pace is the point; Wallander gets there by going through the files.

On screen he has had two lives. Krister Henriksson played him in Sweden from 2005 to 2013, and Kenneth Branagh in the BBC's *Wallander* (2008), which kept the Swedish names and the Swedish light and gave him an English voice. It is a good series carried by one performance. Branagh plays him as a man held together by coffee and guilt, and that carries stretches the writing cannot. Mankell's plots run on grudges decades deep and killers with rituals, and on television the rituals arrive long before the grudges. We flinched at the arranged bodies and then, more than once, felt cheated, because nobody had yet told us why the body was there. The Sweden Anthony Dod Mantle shot for the BBC is also a little too pretty to be true, and prettiness was never what Mankell was selling.

The man survives the move to the screen. The argument mostly does not. In the novels the detective's decline runs alongside the country's, and the point is that they are the same story. On television the country is scenery and the decline is only mood, so that by the third BBC series the pattern is set: Wallander is sad, something terrible happens, Wallander is sadder. Some readers find the books wearying for the same reason, and the politics can be too plainly signposted. But the books know why the man is miserable. Mankell said he would not miss Wallander, that it was the reader who would. The reader has, and so have the cameras, which keep going back for the sleepless policeman and leave most of the questions behind.

## Biography

Henning Mankell was a Swedish crime writer, playwright and children's author. He was born in Stockholm in 1948 and died in Gothenburg in 2015.

He is best known for his series of novels featuring Inspector Kurt Wallander, beginning with *Faceless Killers* (1991). The books were adapted into several television series, including the British *Wallander* (2008), on which Mankell was credited as creator and writer. He co-founded the production company Yellow Bird in 2003.

*Sources: britannica.com, en.wikipedia.org.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Wallander* (2008), Fi1m 76, Writer, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/wallander.md)

## Complete filmography (57)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Wallander - Steget efter* (2026), Characters
- *Young Wallander* (2020), series, Novel
- *Afternoon Encounter* (2017), Screenplay
- *Wallander: The Sad Bird* (2013), Story, Characters
- *Wallander 31 - The Arsonist* (2013), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Loss* (2013), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Betrayal* (2013), Characters
- *Wallander: Missing* (2013), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Troubled Man* (2013), Novel, Characters
- *The Chinese Man* (2011), series, Novel
- *Wallander: The Witness* (2010), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Collector* (2010), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Heritage* (2010), Story, Characters
- *Kennedy's Brain* (2010), Author
- *Wallander: The Ghost* (2010), Story, Characters
- *Wallander 22 - Angel of Death* (2010), Writer, Characters
- *Wallander: The Sniper* (2009), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Leak* (2009), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Priest* (2009), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Cellist* (2009), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Thief* (2009), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Courier* (2009), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Guilt* (2009), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Revenge* (2009), Story, Characters
- *Wallander* (2008), series, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/tv/wallander.md)
- *The Pyramid* (2007), Novel
- *Wallander - Firewall* (2007), series, Novel
- *Wallander: The Secret* (2006), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Joker* (2006), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: Blood Line* (2006), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Castle Ruins* (2006), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Container Lorry* (2006), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Photographer* (2006), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Trickster* (2006), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: Mastermind* (2005), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The African* (2005), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Overdose* (2005), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Brothers* (2005), Story, Characters
- *Wallander: The Village Idiot* (2005), Story, Characters
- *One Step Behind* (2005), Writer, Novel
- *Wallander* (2005), series, Story, Creator
- *Wallander: Before the Frost* (2005), Novel
- *The Return of the Dancing Master* (2004), series, Author
- *The Return of the Dancing Master* (2004), Author
- *Mannen Som Log* (2003), series, Novel
- *The Fifth Woman* (2002), series, Novel
- *Wallander: Sidetracked* (2001), series, Screenplay, Novel, Writer
- *Chronicler of the Winds* (1998), Writer
- *Etterfølgeren* (1997), Writer
- *The White Lioness* (1996), Novel
- *Hundarna i Riga* (1996), series, Novel, Writer, Creator
- *Nattbok* (1996), Thanks
- *The Dogs of Riga* (1995), Writer, Novel
- *Wallander: Faceless Killers* (1995), series, Novel
- *Svenska livstycken* (1981), Director
- *The Race* (1981), Director, Writer
- *A Little Horror?* (1973), series, Director, Adaptation

## Gallery

- ![Swedish author Henning Mankell. (2013)](https://film.one/media/person/6790099/gallery-d6fb146e429e.jpg) Swedish author Henning Mankell. (2013) — Lina Ikse / Leopard Förlag, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Henning_Mankell_2013-06-02_001.jpg/1280px-Henning_Mankell_2013-06-02_001.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Henning Mankell in New York at Barnes & Noble Union Square. (2011)](https://film.one/media/person/6790099/gallery-00808f9f1302.jpg) Henning Mankell in New York at Barnes & Noble Union Square. (2011) — David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Henning_Mankell_2_2011_Shankbone.jpg/1280px-Henning_Mankell_2_2011_Shankbone.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Henning Mankell](https://film.one/media/person/6790099/gallery-1b16ac9c8086.jpg) Henning Mankell — David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Henning_Mankell_3_2011_Shankbone.jpg/1280px-Henning_Mankell_3_2011_Shankbone.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Henning Mankell i ett framträdande under Strindbergsårets sista dag, den 20 januari 2013 i Kulturhuset i Stockholm.](https://film.one/media/person/6790099/gallery-2275186da11f.jpg) Henning Mankell i ett framträdande under Strindbergsårets sista dag, den 20 januari 2013 i Kulturhuset i Stockholm. — Frankie Fouganthin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Henning_Mankell%2C_f%C3%B6rfattare.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Henning Mankell i ett framträdande under Strindbergsårets sista dag, den 20 januari 2013 i Kulturhuset i Stockholm.](https://film.one/media/person/6790099/gallery-56603a3a740f.jpg) Henning Mankell i ett framträdande under Strindbergsårets sista dag, den 20 januari 2013 i Kulturhuset i Stockholm. — Frankie Fouganthin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Henning_Mankell_-2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Swedish author Henning Mankell at the Göteborg Book Fair 2010](https://film.one/media/person/6790099/gallery-3970bcdcc8ed.jpg) Swedish author Henning Mankell at the Göteborg Book Fair 2010 — Boberger, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Henning_Mankell_01.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)

## Awards

### Other awards — 22 won, 1 nominated

- CWA International Dagger 2018: CWA International Dagger (won)
- Riverton International Honour Prize 2012: Riverton International Honour Prize (won)
- Erich-Maria-Remarque Peace Prize 2009: Erich-Maria-Remarque Peace Prize (won)
- Corine Literature Prize 2008: Corine Literature Prize (won)
- Golden Feather 2008: Golden Feather (won)
- Ripper Award 2008: Ripper Award (won)
- Litteris et Artibus 2006: Litteris et Artibus (won)
- Crimezone Thriller Awards 2005: Crimezone Thriller Awards (won)
- Gumshoe Awards 2005: Gumshoe Awards (won)
- Glazen Globe 2003: Glazen Globe (won)
- Best Crime Novel in Swedish Translation 2001: Best Crime Novel in Swedish Translation (won), for *Sidetracked*
- Corine Literature Prize 2001: Corine Literature Prize (won)
- Prix Mystère de la Critique 2000: Prix Mystère de la Critique (won)
- Author of the Year 1997: Author of the Year (won)
- Astrid Lindgren Prize 1996: Astrid Lindgren Prize (won)
- Nordic Council Literature Prize 1996: Nordic Council Literature Prize (nominated), for *Chronicler of the Winds*
- Sveriges Radio's Novel Prize 1996: Sveriges Radio's Novel Prize (won)
- August Prize 1995: August Prize (won)
- Best Swedish Crime Novel Award 1995: Best Swedish Crime Novel Award (won), for *Sidetracked*
- Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 1993: Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (won)
- Glass Key award 1992: Glass Key award (won)
- Best Swedish Crime Novel Award 1991: Best Swedish Crime Novel Award (won), for *Faceless Killers*
- Nils Holgersson Plaque 1991: Nils Holgersson Plaque (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/henning-mankell