Long live the work of genius. Even if it is through reissues that recover that great reference of the black genre that was Henning Mankell. Because what we find on this occasion is that disruptive or rather exploratory debut opera for being the first, a true jewel about how the writer is made, about how they awaken their concerns, with the certain horizon of that unequivocal touch of the gifted writer for the narrative that starts his dedication to this trade.
And, despite finally being internationally known for his crime novel sagas, Mankell had those typical probing origins of the self-taught writer. And despite the fact that his critical intention of the social will always remain impregnated in his black series, it is here, at the origin, where that direct prism on specific social aspects is distilled to a greater extent.
The mining sector, here and there, anywhere in the world where the bowels of the earth are poked to extract minerals of any kind, has always been a risky activity, stigmatized by accidents, disease and death; and surrounded by that halo between gloomy and mysterious, darkening the soul of these workers of the underworld.
The plot of this novel guides us to a Norwegian town, back in 1911, when talking about security measures sounded like science fiction, beyond the helmet, of course. And that's where we meet Oskar Johansson, who ends up dying in a mine blasting operation.
But his death is only an official fact. Because the truth is that Oskar survived the accident and continued with his performance as a miner for a long life until his old age.
And from this fact we discover a story that connects with the harshest reality of life in the mine, of the relationships between colleagues and of the communities created around this work that if even today it is still hard, it supposed once worked in hell.
The character of Oskar Johansson acquires the value of a myth, of an idol of the mining basin whose history is narrated from several characters that complete a scene of the mining sector back in the early years of the XNUMXth century.
You can now buy the novel The Man with Dynamite, Henning Mankell's first novel, here: