Chronicler of the winds / Henning Mankell
- New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton , 2006
- 233 p. ; 22 cm.
On the rooftop of a theater in an African port, a ten-year-old boy lies slowly dying of bullet wounds. He is Nelio, a leader of street kids, rumored to be a healer and a prophet, and possessed of a strangely ancient wisdom. One of the millions of poor people "forced to eat life raw," Nelio tells his unforgettable story over the course of nine nights. After bandits cruelly raze his village, he joins the legions of abandoned children living in the city's streets. An act of the imagination, an effort to prove to his comrades that life must be more than mere survival, cuts short Nelio's life.
Translated from the Swedish to English.
Shortlisted for the Nordic Council Prize for Literature and nominated for the Swedish Publishers Association's August Prize.