The Rock Blaster

By: George Goulding - translation, Henning Mankell

Narrated by: Sean Barrett

At 3 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon in 1911, Oskar Johansson is caught in a blast in an industrial accident. The local newspaper reports him dead, but they are mistaken.

Because Oskar Johansson is a born survivor.

Though crippled, Oskar finds the strength to go on living and working. The Rock Blaster charts his long professional life - his hopes and dreams, sorrows and joys. His relationship with the woman whose love saved him, with the labour movement that gave him a cause to believe in, and with his children, who do not share his ideals.

Henning Mankell's first published novel is steeped in the burning desire for social justice that informed his bestselling crime novels. Remarkably assured for a debut, it is written with scalpel-like precision, at once poetic and insightful in its depiction of a true working-class hero.

Translated from the Swedish by George Goulding

©2020 George Goulding, Henning Mankell, Palco Media AB (P)2020 Quercus Editions Limited

Critic reviews

One of Scandinavia's finest writers. (Ian Rankin.)

He is in the great tradition of those whose works transcend their chosen genre to become thrilling and moral literature. (Michael Ondaatje)

A literary writer of considerable accomplishment. (Barry Forshaw)

In life and in art Henning Mankell was a man of passionate commitment. (Kenneth Brannagh)

Mankell is the master. (Viv Groskop)

Mankell's fierce instinct for social criticism is admirable. (Mike Peed)