A haunting and powerful story about war-torn Africa, a mystical orphan boy, and the power of narrative to give a chaotic world order. In the hot African night a single gunshot cracks the silence. José Antonio traces the sound to the stage of the local theatre company, where he finds Nelio, the young prophetical leader of the city’s street kids, crumpled in blood. Nelio refuses to be taken to the hospital but instead tells Jose his life’s story: how bandits raided his village, his daring escape, and his struggle to survive on the streets. José is irrevocably changed. He becomes the Chronicler of the Winds, revealing Nelios’s magical tale to all who will listen. “Mankell [is] a master storyteller.” — The San Francisco Chronicle “Admirable. . . . [Mankell is] a writer in search of metaphor and meaning. . . . [Which] makes for an elusively compelling narrative voice.” — The Boston Globe “Uplifting. . . . Chronicler of the Winds seems to widen his repertory, switching between the nightmarish, the dream-like and the grittily realistic. . . . Mankell evokes a saintliness among those whose brief lives have been tempered by genocide, exploitation and hardship.” — The New York Times  “Cinematic and theatrical . . . structured by gorgeous moments of text that transcend the page and become vivid images seared onto the imagination.” — Yale Daily News Internationally acclaimed author Henning Mankell has written nine Kurt Wallander mysteries. The books have been published in thirty-three countries and consistently top the bestseller lists in Europe, receiving major literary prizes (including the UK's Golden Dagger for Sidetracked ) and generating numerous international film and television adaptations. He has also published many other novels for children, teens, and adults. In addition, he is one of Sweden's most popular dramatists. Born in 1948, Mankell grew up in the Swedish village Sveg. He now divides his time between Sweden and Maputo, Mozambique, where he works as a director at Teatro Avenida. He has spent many years in Africa, where a number of his novels are set. The First Night When the shots were fired on that fateful night and I found Nelio soaked in his own blood, I had been working at the bakery of the confused and halfcrazed Dona Esmeralda for several years. No one had lasted there as long as I had. Dona Esmeralda was an amazing woman; everyone in the city–and they all knew who she was–either secretly admiredher or wrote her off as insane.When Nelio, without her knowledge, lay on the roof of the bakery and died, she was more than ninety years old. Some claimed that she was a hundred, but noone could say for sure. With Dona Esmeralda, nothing was certain. It was as if she had existed for all time; she was one with the city and its founding. No one could remember her ever being young. She had always been ninety or perhaps a hundred years old. She had always driven around in her ancient car at high speed with the top down, veering from one side of the street to the other. Her clothes had always been made of voluminous silk; her hats were fastened under her wrinkled chin with broad ribbons. It was explained to strangers–who barely managed to avoid being run over by her wild careering–that even though she had always been exceedingly old, she was the youngest daughter of the infamous municipalgovernor Dom Joaquim Leonardo dos Santos, who during his scandal-ridden life had filled the city with innumerable equestrian statues in the various central plazas. Countless stories circulated about Dom Joaquim, particularly about the vast number of illegitimate children he had fathered. With his wife, the birdlike Dona Celestina, he had had three daughters; Esmeralda was the one who resembled him most, in temperament if not in appearance. Dom Joaquim belonged to one of the oldest colonial families that had come from the other side of the sea in the middle of the previous century. His family had quickly become one of the most preeminent in the country. Dom Joaquim’s brothers had won positions through their prospecting for gems in the remote provinces, as big-game hunters, prelates and military officers. At a young age, Dom Joaquim had cast himself into the chaotic arena of local politics. Since the country was governed as a province from across the sea, the locally appointed governors could generally do as they pleased; no one had any opportunity to keep an eye on what they were up to. On those few occasions when suspicion grew too great, government officials would be dispatched from across the sea to find out what was actually going on within the colonial administration. Once Dom Joaquim filled their offices with snakes; another time he installed a number of wild drummers in a neighboring building, whereupon the government officials either flew into a rage or lapsed into a deep silence and then departed as soon as they could find passage to Europe. Their reports had always been reassuring: all was well in