Chronicler of the Winds (Original title: ) is a novel written by Henning Mankell in Swedish in 1995. The story is set in an unnamed port city in Africa which resembles Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, where the author often lived and worked. The narrator is a baker who finds a ten-year-old boy named Nelio. The boy has been shot on the stage of a theatre, and he tells the baker his life story and all his troubles, including living on the street, being persecuted for albinism, and being traumatized as a child soldier. Nelio is "presented as an inspirational figure" in a style derived from African storytelling. The novel was translated by Tiina Nunnally and published in English in 2006. Background Mankell is known for his "socially aware crime fiction" with Inspector Kurt Wallander as a central character. He was fascinated by Africa where he traveled first in the 1970s. From 1987, he lived and worked in both Africa and Sweden. From 1986 on he was director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique. In great contrast to the inspector, who has been described as "a morose, self-loathing plainclothes officer", the novel deals with the life of the street boy Nelio and his death at age ten. Mankell said that "the story unfolds in a manner derived from African storytelling". He favorably compared that style to what he considered that of the typical (chronological) European story: "The African way is much more adventurous. You can jump between realities. You can let dead people meet with living people". Plot The story is set in an unnamed port city in Africa, told in the first-person by a baker, José M. V. He finds Nelio, a 10-year-old boy, shot on the stage of a theatre. He helps the wounded child who refuses medical care, and listens to the story the boy has to tell over the course of nine days before he dies. Nelio says he grew up in a village close to the border. The village was destroyed during a civil war by partisans, who killed his father, sister, and many others, and deported him and his mother to a camp from which he escapes. He meets Yabu Bata, who has albinism. Together they reach the sea, and Nelio alone moves to a port city. He lives as a street boy, sleeping in the monument of a rider. He joins a