Loss of the Swedish Idyll and Xenophobia: Criminal Detective Kurt Wallander in Henning Mankell’s Faceless Killers

Abstract

Swedish crime fiction writer, Henning Mankell, introduces his police detective Kurt Wallander in the first novel of the Wallander series, Faceless Killers. This paper studies the issue of xenophobia in the Swedish context, and how it affects the protagonist of the novel, criminal detective Kurt Wallander, who, although maintains his apolitical worldview, laments the loss of the Swedish idyll. The first section, titled ‘Swedish Nationalism and the “Other”’, focuses on the aspect of the postcolonial “other” in Mankell’s Faceless Killers. The second section, “Xenophobia and a Scathing Criticism of the Right-Winged Nationalism”, expounds on how Mankell, through his criminal detective, Kurt Wallander, criticises hardcore and headstrong nationalism supported by the right-winged populace. The third section of the paper, ” Kurt Wallander, Xenophobia and loss of the Idyll” exposes how for Wallander, the political upheaval and the social chaos ultimately lead to the loss of the idyll that he has been associating with the Swedish countryside. The “Concluding Remarks” of the paper expound upon Wallander’s way of coping with the changing notion of the idyll.