Shadow of the Leopard - Softcover

Mankell, Henning

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1554511992 ISBN 13: 9781554511990

Publisher: Annick Press, 2009

Synopsis

Readers met Sofia previously in Secrets in the Fire, when, at the age of 9, she lost her legs in a land mine explosion.

Now Sofia is almost 20 and pregnant with her third child. Armando, the father of her children, travels to the city to work, coming home on weekends. One Saturday Armando is very late, and as he stands in the shadows beyond the firelight, Sofia knows he is hiding something from her. She makes her way to town to find out what he is doing …

… and is devastated to discover that he is involved with another woman. Sofia ends their relationship, but suffers terribly in the face of Armando’s rage. In a heart-rending conclusion Armando’s life unravels, and Sofia must return to her village to raise her children without him.

Shadow of the Leopard is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, told with clear-eyed compassion and humane and strongly atmospheric insight.

About this title

About the Author

Henning Mankell was born in 1948 and is one of Sweden's most popular authors. His Kurt Wallander detective series has sold millions of copies. He spends half of his time in Mozambique, where he knows the real Sofia who inspired this novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt

Before This Story Begins

TEN YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE I first started to tell the story of Sofia, a girl from Mozambique, in a book called Secrets in the Fire. When Sofia was nine years old, she lost both her legs in a terrible landmine explosion that killed her ten-year-old sister Maria.

A few years later I wrote another book about Sofia and her family. It was called Playing with Fire and was mostly about Sofia falling in love for the first time in her life. But it was also about the despair she felt when her older sister Rosa fell ill with AIDS and died.

Then, five years ago, I promised to write one more story about Sofia. Much has happened in my life and in Sofia's, too. Now I feel the time has come for another book about her.

In the books about Sofia I mix truth and invention. What I describe has happened in reality, but not exactly in that way. Very often stories grow out of combinations of reality with dreams, or imagined events. Sofia's life merges with the lives of other people, as I borrow from their fates.

I have read this story aloud to Sofia. We spent a few warm African evenings together, talking by a camp fire. She listened to my story and now I'll tell it to you, who hold this book in your hand...
Henning Mankell

Edition details

• Publisher: Annick Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1554511992
• ISBN 13: 9781554511990
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 184