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For me Oliver Twist is a political novel. It is a furious critique of the treatment of orphans and poor children who were forced to spend their early lives in ghastly institutions.

Henning Mankell

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Henning Mankell
Age: 67 †
Born: 1948
Born: February 3
Died: 2015
Died: October 5
Crime Writer
Film Director
Human Rights Activist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Sthlm
Henning Georg Mankell
Early
Twist
Spend
Orphan
Novel
Furious
Poor
Critique
Lives
Twists
Political
Treatment
Orphans
Children
Forced
Oliver
Institutions
Ghastly

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When someone asks me to list the 10 best novels ever written, I always refuse to answer.
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Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee.
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Dreams can be of value even if you don’t have an opportunity to turn them into reality.
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Although many of his other novels are brilliant there is a power in 'Oliver Twist' that I believe Dickens never managed to retrieve. It is as if he was sent to this earth with the sole purpose of writing this book.
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Many people say I smile more in Africa than in Sweden.
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Have I ever written anything that has really changed something? What I believe is that you can't change anything without using art. I believe that the drops wear away the stone. I try to be part of that army.
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It’s only when we can work with something that brings out our strengths that we’re of any real use.
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I can still remember. I was ill, and I was seven, and my father didn't want me to just read children's books. He came with Conan Doyle. I tried, and I liked it. I think the first I read was 'The Sign of the Four' 'Study in Scarlet' was the next one. Then I guess I stayed home a few extra days from school to read.
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When I was a very young author, I knew I needed to build myself a tower outside of Europe. Like when you're a hunter, and build towers to watch the animals move. I knew I would never understand the world without that perspective. I came to Africa for that rational reason, although I love Mozambique now.
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They pondered the importance of coffee in silence.
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Poverty always looks the same, no matter where you come across it. The rich can always express their opulence by varying their lives. Different houses, clothes, cars. Or thoughts, dreams. But for the poor there is nothing but compulsory grayness, the only form of expression available to poverty.
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Although I never marched through the streets shouting for Mao, I do believe that the liberation of China at the end of the 1940s was a wonderful thing and to provide its people with a billion pairs of shoes and trousers was a fantastic achievement.
Henning Mankell
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An oppressed people will always rise.
Henning Mankell
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I do not understand how on earth you can become a writer without seeing the world.
Henning Mankell
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Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.
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I am not afraid of dying. I have lived longer than most people in the world. What scares me is to have a body that works but a brain that is waving goodbye. If that happens, I hope I die quickly.
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Children get acquainted with each other in a special way, they do not make contracts as adults, they believe each other or not. Childish friendships often end in violence. You may become an enemy all of a sudden as well as notice that you are someone's best friend.
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I can still remember the miraculous feeling of writing a sentence, then more sentences, telling a story. The first thing I wrote was a one-page summary of Robinson Crusoe and I am so sorry I do not have it any more it was at that moment I became an author.
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The stories I create are never as awful as reality.
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I am fascinated by all the new technology that creates places for us to meet in what is called cyberspace. I understand what it must have meant for the rebellions in the 19th century, especially in 1830 and 1848, when the mass circulated newspaper became so important for the spreading of information.
Henning Mankell