The Eye of the Leopard

A Novel

By: Henning Mankell

Narrated by: Saul Reichlin

Interweaving past and present, Sweden and Zambia, The Eye of the Leopard draws on bestselling author Henning Mankell's deep understanding of the two worlds he has inhabited for more than twenty years.

Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia not long after independence, hoping to fulfill the missionary dream of his friend Janice. He is also fleeing the traumas of his motherless childhood: his father's alcoholism, his best friend's terrible accident, Janice's death, his fear of an ordinary and stifled fate. Africa is a terrible shock, yet he stays and makes it his home. But he never fully comes to understand his place as a mzungu, a wealthy white man among native blacks, and the fragile truce between them. Rumors of an underground army of revolutionaries wearing leopard skins warn him that the truce is in danger of rupturing.

Alternating between Hans's years in Africa and those in Sweden, The Eye of the Leopard is a bravura achievement and a study in contrasts—black and white, poor and wealthy, Africa and Europe—both sinister and elegiac.

©1990 Henning Mankell; English translation copyright 2008 by Steven T. Murray (P)2022 Tantor

Wonderful English translation.

I loved it. Thank you. I'll be looking for more of the author and
the translator.

The best description of Africa and the comparison with the white race.

I disliked nothing!
The most accurate description of Africa and the different cultures.
Excellent work!