The Shadow Girls (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781595581921)

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).

Author: Henning Mankell
ISBN-10: 1595581928
ISBN-13: 9781595581921
Publisher: New Press
Language: English
Published: 10/16/2012
Pages: 336
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.10w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 09/03/2012 pg. 44
Shelf Awareness 10/26/2012
Foreword 12/03/2012
New York Times Book Review 01/20/2013 pg. 20