
The problem of Aids has been kept largely under control in Europe, but in the Third World it is a different story. There is a devestating lack of resources for medicine and for education. When parents die at a young age, children are left behind with no-one to teach them how to avoid the same fate, and so the cycle continues.
Memory Books could prove to be the most important documents in our time in answer to this crisis. When the official reports have been filed away, these slim volumes, memories recorded by those who died too soon, will remain. Through a combination of words and drawings, they can have a legacy, a hope that future generations may not suffer the same heartbreaking fate.
Henning Mankell is not a public figure in the way politicians are, but he has achieved cult success with his Kurt Wallander novels and is noted for the social and moral questions raised by his fiction. He devotes much of his time to work with Aids charities.
I Die But the Memory Lives on is a fable illustrating the importance of books as a means of education, of preserving memories and of sharing life. In the midst of death and suffering, a young girl plants a tree. She nurtures it as a fragment of life that will grow and survive and, like the Memory Books, outlive this global crisis. Mankell, by highlighting and humanising this catastrophe, proposes a way to help.
Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the son of a judge. He grew up in the towns of Sveg and Borås. His grandfather, also called Henning Mankell (1868–1930), was a well-known composer. At the age of 20, Mankell was the assistant director at the Riks Theater in Stockholm, and he was also writing. In the 1970s he moved to Norway, where he lived with a woman who was a member of the Maoist Communist Labour Party, although he never officially joined the Party. He moved to Africa and lived in several African countries, and in 1985 he founded the Avenida Theater in Maputo, Mozambique, where he continues to spend about half of every year. In 1997 he began his most well-known series of novels, a series of murder mysteries set in Ystad, Sweden, featuring the police detective Kurt Wallander. He also established a publishing house, Leopard Förlag, to publish young talents from both Africa and Sweden. He is married to Eva Bergman, daughter of Ingmar Bergman.

The problem of Aids has been kept largely under control in Europe, but in the Third World it is a different story. There is a devestating lack of resources for medicine and for education. When parents die at a young age, children are left behind with no-one to teach them how to avoid the same fate, and so the cycle continues.
Memory Books could prove to be the most important documents in our time in answer to this crisis. When the official reports have been filed away, these slim volumes, memories recorded by those who died too soon, will remain. Through a combination of words and drawings, they can have a legacy, a hope that future generations may not suffer the same heartbreaking fate.
Henning Mankell is not a public figure in the way politicians are, but he has achieved cult success with his Kurt Wallander novels and is noted for the social and moral questions raised by his fiction. He devotes much of his time to work with Aids charities.
I Die But the Memory Lives on is a fable illustrating the importance of books as a means of education, of preserving memories and of sharing life. In the midst of death and suffering, a young girl plants a tree. She nurtures it as a fragment of life that will grow and survive and, like the Memory Books, outlive this global crisis. Mankell, by highlighting and humanising this catastrophe, proposes a way to help.
Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the son of a judge. He grew up in the towns of Sveg and Borås. His grandfather, also called Henning Mankell (1868–1930), was a well-known composer. At the age of 20, Mankell was the assistant director at the Riks Theater in Stockholm, and he was also writing. In the 1970s he moved to Norway, where he lived with a woman who was a member of the Maoist Communist Labour Party, although he never officially joined the Party. He moved to Africa and lived in several African countries, and in 1985 he founded the Avenida Theater in Maputo, Mozambique, where he continues to spend about half of every year. In 1997 he began his most well-known series of novels, a series of murder mysteries set in Ystad, Sweden, featuring the police detective Kurt Wallander. He also established a publishing house, Leopard Förlag, to publish young talents from both Africa and Sweden. He is married to Eva Bergman, daughter of Ingmar Bergman.