Chronicler of the Winds
Originally published in Swedish as Comédia Infantil in 1995.

Synopsis

From Amazon.com:
One night, Jose Antonio Maria Vaz hears gunfire from the deserted theatre next door to his bakery. Bemused, he races to the uppermost gallery and there beneath him on a spot-lit stage lies the wounded body of Nelio, the fabled street urchin, renowned throughout the city for living on his wits. Gasping, Nelio asks to be taken to the roof to breathe in the beautiful air, fresh off the Indian Ocean. There on the theatre roof, his life ebbing away, Nelio begins his story.

At the age of five, Nelio witnessed his village burned to the ground, and the brutal massacre of his people by bandits. He himself escaped by chance; a man handed Nelio a gun and ordered him to shoot another boy, instead he turned the gun on the bandit, shot and ran. He made his way to the coast, encountering bizarre characters en route who gave him guidance. Upon arrival in the city Nelio joined a rough street gang, and began a very different way of life. A dazzling departure from the master of crime, Henning Mankell's "Chronicler of the Winds" takes us to the African continent, a place for which the author has a great passion. It is an expertly crafted fable.

Film Synopsis from The Portland Mercury:
A young boy escapes the horrors of Mozambique's civil war to become leader to a group of street children. Proclaimed a healer by those around him, he finds his new popularity can't protect him from the war.

Film Review From Rishika of IOFilms:
BASED on Swedish author Henning Mankell's novel, the story of Nelio (the bright-eyed Sergio Titos), a street kid in Mozambique, is a fantastical journey from the horror of civil war in the countryside to the daily struggle for survival on the streets of the capital city. A magical lizard woman, a disappearing dwarf and spirits of the dead all cross Nelio's path on his journey. Surprisingly uplifting, the film is carried by a gang of non-actor street kids as they create what enjoyment they can out of life despite the odds against them.

Nelio is found fatally wounded on the stage of the local theater by Jose the baker. Nelio insists on spending his remaining hours telling his tale to this sympathetic man who would prefer to send for help. Nelio's village is torn apart by gun-wielding night marauders and Nelio himself is rounded up for a rebel training camp. He makes his escape to the city where he hooks up with a group of street kids who show him the ropes. Nelio becomes the de facto leader of the group, despite being a mere ten years old. He also begins demonstrating unusual healing powers, which will abandon him at a crucial moment.

Though director Nordlund makes no attempt to play down the brutal violence of the civil war, nor the meanness of street life, Nelio's story emphasizes how one person can touch the lives of others. Upbeat music and comic scenarios resist the downward pull of poverty. Hierarchies of race and privilege are dealt with obliquely: a light-skinned hand gives a penny to Nelio as he begs in the market; the street kids outwit light-skinned property owners and security guards. While the end may seem a little naive in its hopefulness, the film makes its case on the strength of the street kids' will to live, and the potential awakening of adults from the deadening effects of the war.

Film Review From New Internationalist Magazine:
For ten-year-old Nelio in the Mozambique-based Comedia Infantil it is a child's innocence and spirituality that offers some hope. Nelio has seen his village burned down and witnessed atrocities to his family. After shooting his guerrilla captor, he flees to Maputo. En route, in mystical images reminiscent of The Night of the Hunter, he seems to be protected by the local wildlife. In the capital he scrapes a living among the local street children and gains a reputation as a healer. But he is not free from his past, and his story -- told in flashbacks -- captures the hardships and displacement caused by civil war. That the child actors are real-life streetchildren (leading actor Sergio Titos apparently ran away from his orphanage to audition for the part) adds another dimension to Solveig Nordlund's film while raising issues about exploitation.

Reviews

• Africa, a crime author's genre diversion by Alan Cowell forThe New York Times, 2006-May-01
• Chronicling civil war, from a child's view by Ed Siegel for the Boston Globe, 2006-July-04
• Chronicler of the Winds review by Ian Hicks for the Sydney Morning Herald, 2006-May-02
• Blowing hot and cold by Andrew Billen for the Times, 2006-Mar-25
• Now here's a literary mystery by James Grainger
• Windy Chronicler blows away reader by Victor Cezares for the Yale Daily News, 2006-Apr-21
• Slaughter of the innocent by Joanna Kavenna for The Guardian, 2006-Apr-16
• Chronicle of a death foretold at The Independent, 2006-Apr-07
• Film Review by Rishika at ioFilm
• Film Review From New Internationalist Magazine

Links

• IMDB

Language	Title	Publication Date	Translator
Swedish	Comédia Infantil	1995	N/A
English	Chronicler of the Winds	2006	Tiina Nunnally
German	Der Chronist der Winde	2002
Dutch	Verteller van de wind	1998	Cora Polet
French	Comédia Infantil	2003	Agneta Segol, Pascale Brick-Aïda
Italian	??
Spanish	Comédia infantil	2002
Catalan	Comèdia infantil	2002
Basque	??
Norwegian	??	1998
Finnish	??
Danish	Et gadebarns løfte
Icelandic	??
Portuguese	Comédia Infantil	1998
Greek	Η κωμωδια τησ παιδικησ ηλικιασ	1999
Polish	??
Slovenian	Šepetalec vetra	2005	Aleš Uèakar
Turkish	??
Japanese	??
Korean	??
Vietnamese	??

Film Information
Comédia Infantil was filmed in 1998, three years after it was published in Sweden.

Product List
Books
Image	Title	Notes	Vendor
	Chronicler of the Winds	Publisher: Harvill Secker Format: Hardcover Pages: 272 ISBN: 1860469906 Released: 2006-Apr-6 Status: Unreleased Markets:	Amazon.co.uk
	Chronicler of the Winds	Publisher: New Press Format: Hardcover Pages: 272 ISBN: 1595580581 Released: 2006-Apr-15 Status: Unreleased Markets:	Amazon.com
	Comédia infantil	Publisher: TusQuets Format: Paperback Pages: 272 ISBN: 8483102056 Released: 2002-Dec Status: In Print Markets:
	Comédia Infantil	Publisher: Ordfront Format: Pages: 256 ISBN: 9173246107 Released: 1995 Status: Unknown Markets:
	Nelio	Publisher: Fjord Press Format: Paperback Pages: 272 ISBN: 0940242729 Released: 2000-Feb-1 Status: Never printed? Markets:	Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.co.uk
DVD & Video
Image	Title	Notes	Vendor
	Comédia Infantil	Publisher: Warner Format: DVD, Region 2, PAL, Color Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Widescreen Language: Portuguese with English & Swedish & Subtitles Rating: Released: 2005-10-26 Status: Available	DiscShop.se