One of the things I've heard a lot about in the past few years is postcolonialism. There's also a lot of talk about postmodernism and postmodernity, but I'm told that that is not really relevant to Africa and that postcolonialism is the thing. And apparently the book to read about postcolonialism is Orientalism by Edward Said, but whenever I look for it in the library someone else has taken it out. But this novel is set in postcolonial Zambia, at least in part, and got me thinking about the nature of colonialism and the postcolonial condition.Henning Mankell is probably best known, to English-speaking readers at any rate, for his detective novels featuring the boozy melancholic detective Kurt Wallander of southern Sweden. This is very different, though actually about a third of the book seems to be a slightly reworked version of another of Mankell's books, A bridge to the stars. That is a sort of Bildungsroman, about a woodcutter's son growing up in the north of Sweden, and befriending a woman who had been disfigured by a botched nose operation. In this book there are flashbacks to that, and the protagonist, Hans Olofson, travels to Zambia to fulfil an ambition of the disfigured woman who died -- visiting a mission station that had been founded by a Swede in the remote north-western part of Zambia. Olofson feels alienated from the moment of his arrival, and makes his way to the mission station, spends a couple of days there, and then leaves again. He takes up an invitation to stay with some white farmers he met on the train, and ends up staying in Zambia for eighteen years. But Zambia, seen through the eyes of an alienated Swede, is a nightmare place. Moving in the circles of white farmers who were struggling to adapt to the postcolonial milieu, he comes to see the blacks through the eyes of the white farmers, and most of the blacks they encounter are their employees, who find whites as inscrutable as the whites find them. But because Olofson is Swedish, he also has a somewhat more detached view of the white farmers, and is therefore an observer of the relations between the people around him, and tries, somewhat ineffectually, to establish better relations when he finds himself in the position of being an employer. And I found myself repelled by the view of both black and white people in the book. Were black people in Zambia in the 1970s and 1980s really like those protrayed in the book, or was it simply because they were being seen through the distorting lens of the white bwana mentality? And were the whites really like that? And then I thought, yes, to some extent the whites were. My mother had cousins who lived in what was then called Northern Rhodesia, and I remember one of them telling us that her husband, when walking down the pavement, used to press burning cigarettes into the necks of black people who didn't scuttle out of his way into the gutter quickly enough (to her credit that was one of the reasons she gave for divorcing him). I remembered when I was a student at the University of Natal in the mid-1960s, and the Rhodesian students were generally far more racist than the South African ones. When Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia in 1964, every student from there (and they were all white) was given an independence celebration kit, with a small Zambian flag, a record of the national anthem ("Stand and sing of Zambia, proud and free" to the tune of Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika) and various other goodies, and they were given money to organise themselves an independence party, so that even those who didn't like the idea of blacks running the country had a jolly booze up to celebrate. Some of them, probably the majority of them, probably came from families like the white families depicted in the book. So yes, the colonialist attitudes were there, even in a postcolonial society. I've never been to Zambia, though I have occasionally met Zambians in other places, but the book implies that black people are like all over Africa, at least when seen through eyes of the white employer class. And most of the white people and black people I've known haven't been like that. But if you look at certain web sites, yes, you can find that such attitudes are still fostered, even in South Africa. In that period in South Africa there was also an influx of whenwes from newly-independent Kenya, who were given large chunks of time on the radio to tell us what a marvellous job the National Party was doing in running the country and keeping the blacks in their place, unlike Kenya. And their attitudes were probably pretty close to those of the whites depicted in this book. I found this an immensely sad book, and the protagonist seemed to have had a very sad and lonely life. Since Mankell has written anoth very similar book, I wonder if it isn't semi-autobiographical. And I wonder what picture Swedish people reading it will get of Africa. And it is about a postcolonial society, though I wonder if it is a full and accurate reflection of the postcolonial condition.
I have never been to Africa.Yet somehow I feel like as if I have been. Swedish Writer, Henning Mankell took me on a journey to discover that amazing continent, like no other. He showed me the landscape of Africa, more specifically that of Zambia, her people, her culture and customs, corruption and war, problems that were scorching her soul and tearing her apart.The Eye of the Leopard, Mankell’s book set in his native Sweden and his beloved Africa, where he apparently spent part of his life. This was not the first book I have read by this first rate author, best known for his Inspector Kurt Wallander crime fiction series. I have been a fan of his ever since I stumbled upon The Return of the Dancing Master about ten years ago. I was hooked by his unique story-telling style instantly and permanently.In the span of a decade, I have hungrily devoured many of this modern literary master’s works, often ordering his new books before they came out. I have read almost all of his non-Wallander books, except his children’s books, and without exception, I enjoyed them all.Through The Eye of the Leopard, I have fallen deeper in love with his brilliant story-telling, the beauty of his words, the haunting images he created, and the mystery and tension he conveyed through the pages.This book follows the protagonist Hans Olofson, a Swedish young man born and grown up in the freezing Norrland, abandoned by a mother he never knew and living with his alcoholic father. Mankell expertly weaves a parallel story-line, alternating between his time as a boy growing into a young man in Sweden, and a young man who did not have a purpose in life, drifting and lost, then decided to go to Africa, to fulfill a dream that his girlfriend once had. "He can recall his departure for Africa like a dim shadow play. He imagine the memories he bears to be a forest which was once open and clean, but which has become more and more overgrown. He has no tools for clearing the brush and scrub in this landscape. The growth of his memories is constant, the landscape harder and harder to take in."There are many beautiful, thought-provoking descriptions like the paragraph above throughout the book. As a reader, I was sucked into the internal turmoil of Hans Olofson, his struggles to comprehend his fate, the impossibility of him understanding Africans, even after 18 years in that land, his suffocating fears, and the deep-rooted, pervading misunderstanding and hatred between the Whites and the Blacks. "Is there anything that can be understood? Isn’t life, which is so difficult to manage, nothing but a series of incomprehensible events lurking behind the corners as one passes? Who can ever deal with the dark impulses hidden inside?"This is a compelling, wonderfully crafted narrative about human weaknesses and strengths, contrasting cultures between Northern European and Central Africa. It is one man’s adventure into another land, both alien and exciting, his psychological journey into unknown territory.I highly recommend this book, and in fact, all of Mankell’s books – he is a living literary legend, and a master of Scandinavian crime fiction and Nordic Noir, whose works will continue to inspire and enlighten many generations to come.- Review originally published on my blog on 18/03/21013 at: http://www.junyingkirk.com/?p=4575#st...
What do You think about The Eye Of The Leopard (2008)?
I believe this is the first novel I ever read by a Swedish writer. If you ever wonder why Africa is what it is now this book really gives a lot of insight to the complex issues Africa faces. I don't think there will ever be an easy solution for the problems Africa faces. Povery, corruption, superstition, racism, hypocricy of missionaries and aid programs, and the terrible misunderstanding between the blacks and the whites who colonized the continent all play a part in the terrible situation Africa is in nowadays. This novel basically consists of two parallel stories, a young Swedish native looking back on his first 25 years in Sweden and his subsequent years in Africa as an egg farmer. Though there was a lot of despair in both parts of his lives, the novel itself wasn't terribly depressing. A well crafted novel.
—Zhiqing
Mankell shows us the depths of human cruelty and the curious bonds of human devotion in several distinct times and places during the protagonist's life. We see Hans Olofson in rural Sweden as a boy with a hopeless, drunken single father yearning for the sea. We see him a few years later when he's made a good friend and they've turned from tormentors to loyal devotees of a local mutilated young woman. We see him casting about for some purpose to his life after he's finished his studies. And then we see him in Zambia, where eighteen years of his life disappear as he becomes transformed from a white man attempting to distance himself from the colonial whites who disgust him into one of them himself. We get to watch the evolution of racism in Hans, who seems to float through life without ever taking responsibility for his own actions.A few examples:"Why am I who I am? he thinks. Why me and not somebody else?" (11)"Home, he wants to answer. Or at least away, away from this continent that makes him feel totally helpless, that has ripped from him all the survival tools he had acquired during his previous life..." (23)"They look at their empty hands and wonder where the instruments of power have gone. Then they discover these instruments in the hands of the people they previously only spoke to when giving out orders and reprimands. They live in the Epoch of Mortification, in the twilight land of ruin. The whites in Africa are a wandering remnant of a people that no one wants to think about. They have lost their foundation, what they thought was permanent for all eternity..." (44)"In an African village there are no locks, he thinks. It's the first thing we teach them. Locking a door gives a false sense of security." (290)"Africa's women carry the continent on their heads. Seeing a woman with a large burden on her head gives an impression of power and self-confidence. No one knows the back problems that result from these loads they carry." (300)
—Margot
Why I read ItHenning Mankell is one of my favorite authors. I have waited on this a while because it is a departure from his crime fiction and instead focuses on his other passion in life; Africa. Even though it is 19 years old, it was only translated last year and as of yet I haven’t mastered Swedish.The GoodI like books that open up my horizons a little, especially about other cultures. While I am missing the big picture that ties to the two concurrent stories together – the hero’s childhood in Sweden and his adult life in Africa (maybe it is the hopelessness of trying to enforce your values on a culture that doesn’t want it) – each story was compelling on its own.The BadIf you are like me and see a bad situation; you want to help, to make it better. When I read about poverty in Africa that is the feeling I get. This book left me with despair at trying to make a change.The Ugly (my opinion)Despair aside, this book has made me think, which is a good thing. Is prejudice based on truth or the fact that the individual cannot accept that everyone not wanting things your way is not necessarily a bad thing? Anotherwords, people often express the opinion that others are inferior because they do not do things the way they would do them. The arrogance of that belief system is lost on them.
—David Peters
