The Wallander mysteries have made Henning Mankell one of the bestselling Swedish authors of all time - and put Ystad firmly on the tourist map. There are no plans for a Wallanderland yet, but a visitor center has just opened.
Henning Mankell is one of the bestselling Swedish authors of all time. Photo: www.imagebank.sweden.se / Cato Lein
For millions of people worldwide the southern Swedish seaside town of Ystad is synonymous with brutal murders and the man out to solve them, a grumpy and overworked detective by the name of Kurt Wallander.
Now a new visitor center is giving fans of the award-winning Wallander books, and the movies that followed them, a closer look at the most popular character in Swedish fiction. More than 24 million Wallander books have been sold to date in 37 languages. Before the Frost was the biggest-selling book in Germany in 2003 – knocking even Harry Potter from the top spot – and the seventh biggest-selling book globally.
The southern Swedish town of Ystad, previously known for its long sandy beaches and half-timbered houses, has become a place of pilgrimage for followers of the Wallander mysteries. Photo: Position Skåne © sydpol.com
Crime pays
The decision by Mankell to give his character employment with Ystad police has been the tourism equivalent of striking oil under the town square. A study carried out for the regional authority has estimated that 128 million people worldwide will see the Wallander movies. As a result, tourism is forecast to increase by between four and ten per cent by 2008, generating millions of Swedish kronor for the local economy.
Juan Pedregosa from Barcelona, Spain, says: “We’re on a pilgrimage”. Traveling with a friend and a well-thumbed copy of a Spanish translation of one of the books, Pedregosa has on his Ystad itinerary Wallander’s flat on Mariagatan and his workplace, the police station. “We’re going to send MMS pictures of them back to my friends in Barcelona who also love the books,” Pedregosa says. “I’ve read the first five books, and my wife is two books ahead of me.”
Addictive reading
During the last two years, 13 new stories developed by Henning Mankell have been filmed in Ystad. Photo: Position Skåne © sydpol.com
It seems to be a common trait among Wallander readers to start with the first book, Faceless Killers (1991), and then get immediately hooked, reeling off the entire 10-book series in sequence.
Wallander has been described by The Times newspaper in London as “one of the most impressive and credible creations of crime fiction today.”
He lives and breathes his work, and has been known to get so absorbed in his cases that he forgets to eat. He compensates for his difficulty sleeping with industrial quantities of coffee, and is diabetic. His wife has left him, he has no real friends, and he is prone to bouts of melancholy for which he seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle. But he is a damned good detective, and readers love him.
Sweden’s most famous detective lives on Mariagatan in central Ystad. Photo: Skåne © sydpol.com
Social conscience
Mankell has, through the Wallander series, become one of the bestselling Swedish authors ever – although he has also written dozens of books on other subjects. He owns a renovated whitewashed farmhouse outside of town at the end of a long, winding country lane in a setting straight out of his fiction. Together with his wife, Eva Bergman, daughter of movie director and screenwriter Ingmar, Mankell spends half the year living in Maputo, Mozambique, where he is a theater director. He lives modestly, donates large sums to good causes and speaks out, sometimes through a column in the local newspaper, Ystads Allehanda, on a range of topics from landmines and Aids in Africa to social issues in his native country.
Tourist magnet
Devoted fans can take a guided tour in Wallander's footsteps in the streets of Ystad, southern Sweden. Photo: Position Skåne © sydpol.com
Besides obligatory stops at the Wallander apartment and the hilltop police station, fans eat and drink at his favorite haunts and stay at the hotels that feature in the books. The latest addition to enthusiasts’ itineraries is Cineteket, a visitor center next door to the studios where the Wallander movies are produced. Here devotees have the opportunity to see how the movies are made and take a tour that includes the set of his apartment.
Surprisingly, however, there are no novelty T-shirts proclaiming, “My mom and dad went to Ystad and all I got was this bloodstained T-shirt,” no souvenir mugs, no Wallander action figures.
Itta Johnson, head of tourism, says: “Ystad is going to exist long after Wallander, and it has so much else going for it. So we are very careful that Ystad does not become Wallanderland.”
But with more Wallander mysteries planned and the local body count set to rise as a result, murder will continue to pay for Ystad.
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Henning Mankell – the facts
- Born: February 3, 1948
- Awards: The Academy of Swedish Crime Writers’ prize for Faceless Killers (1991); the Scandinavian Crime Society prize, The Glass key, for Faceless Killers (1991); The Academy of Swedish Crime Writers’ prize for Sidetracked (1995); the British Crime Writers’ Association prize, the Golden Dagger, for Sidetracked (2001)
- What his peers say: “For me, Henning Mankell is by far the best writer of police mysteries today. He is in the great tradition of those whose works transcend their chosen genre to become thrilling and moral literature” - Michael Ondaatje, author
- Why Ystad: “I felt that a small town should play a main part in the story. At that time is was common that everything centered on big cities. I don’t believe that Ystad and the surrounding countryside have had any direct affect on the composition of the books. But I have consciously allowed the countryside, seasons and people to play a major role in my books” – Henning Mankell
Wallander mysteries
- Mördare utan ansikte (Faceless Killers, 1991)
- Hundarna i Riga (The Dogs of Riga, 1992)
- Den vita lejoninnan (The White Lioness, 1993)
- Mannen som log (The Man Who Smiled, 1994)
- Villospår (Sidetracked, 1995)
- Den femte kvinnan (The Fifth Woman, 1996)
- Steget efter (One Step Behind, 1997)
- Brandvägg (Firewall, 1998)
- Pyramiden (The Pyramid, 1999)
- Innan frosten (Before the Frost, 2002)
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David Wiles, who is currently on book No.8 in the Wallander series, is editor of Sweden Today magazine. He lives on the same street in Ystad as one of Wallander’s colleagues.
The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.
Classification: A151EN
© Photo:
Photo 1: www.imagebank.sweden.se / Cato Lein
Photo 2-5: Position Skåne©sydpol.com
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