From the New York Times-bestselling author: A story of one man's
awakening and "a heartfelt reminder of the many people whose struggles
are never known" (The Plain Dealer).
Jesper Humlin, a poet of middling acclaim and underwhelming book sales,
is facing a crisis. His boy-wonder stockbroker has squandered Humlin's
investments, and his editor, who says he must write a crime novel to
survive, starts pitching and promoting the nonexistent book despite
Humlin's emphatic refusals. Then, when he travels to Gothenburg to give
a reading, he finds himself thrust into a world where names shift,
stories overlap, and histories are both deeply secret and in profound
need of retelling.
Leyla from Iran, Tanya from Russia, and Tea-Bag, who is from Africa but
claims to be from Kurdistan (because Kurds might receive preferential
treatment as refugees)--these are the shadow girls who become Humlin's
unlikely pupils in impromptu writing workshops. Though he had imagined
their stories as fodder for his own book, soon their intertwining lives
require him to play a much different role.
Offering both surprising humor and heartrending tragedy, The Shadow
Girls is a "passionate and entertaining" triumph that will astonish
longtime fans of Mankell's acclaimed Kurt Wallander novels as well as
readers new to his work (The Daily Telegraph).
