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    A Treacherous Paradise
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    A Treacherous Paradise
    Unavailable
    A Treacherous Paradise
    Audiobook11 hours

    A Treacherous Paradise

    Written by Henning Mankell

    Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the internationally acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander crime novels, a powerful stand-alone novel set in early-twentieth-century Sweden and Mozambique, whose vividly drawn female protagonist is awoken from her naïveté by her exposure to racism and by her own unexpected inner strengths.

    Cold and poverty define Hanna Renström's childhood in remote northern Sweden, and in 1904, at nineteen, she boards a ship for Australia in hope of a better life.  But none of her hopes-or fears-prepares her for the life she will lead. After two brief marriages both leave her widowed, she finds herself the owner of a bordello in Portuguese East Africa, a world where colonialism and white colonists rule, where she is isolated within white society by her profession and her gender, and, among the bordello's black prostitutes, by her color.

    As Hanna's story unfurls over the next several years in this "treacherous paradise," she wrestles with a devastating loneliness and with the racism she's meant to unthinkingly adopt. And as her life becomes increasingly intertwined with the prostitutes', she moves inexorably toward the moment when she will make a decision that defies all the expectations society has of her and, more important, those she has of herself.

    Gripping in its drama, evocative and searing in its portrait of colonial Africa, A Treacherous Paradise is, at its heart, a deeply moving story of a woman who manages to wrench wisdom, empathy, and grace from the most unforgiving circumstances.

    A Hachette Audio production.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 9, 2013
    ISBN9780804126946
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for A Treacherous Paradise

    3.5/5

    109 ratings10 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Well written, but at the end a disappointment.
    • 5/5
      For those of us who love the Wallander mysteries it's always great to see a new Henning Mankell novel. This story is very different from the mysteries, however. It's the story of a young Swedish woman, Hannah, who in 1904 who sails as a crew member on a voyage to Australia and marries the third mate. He dies and is buried at sea. She leaves the ship in Portuguese East Africa, now Mozambique. Eventually, after a miscarriage and a long convalescence in what she believes is a hotel, but turns out to be a brothel, she marries the owner. When he dies she finds herself a wealthy woman and the owner of the brothel. The story is about her search for her identity as she learns to navigate a very treacherous world where everyone lies. The book explores how racism and colonialism affect the white colonists and the Africans. In fact, the only person Hannah can trust is Carlos, a chimpanzee working at the brothel who becomes her only true friend. Mankell, who divides his time between Sweden and Mozambique, says it is based on tax records of that time that show a Swedish woman was the largest tax payer in town and the owner of a brothel. Everything else is imagined. I listened to it as an audiobook. It sounds almost like a fable. This is an amazing story that I recommend highly.
    • 4/5
      My main familiarity with Mankell is as the man who brought eloquence to the basic thriller,through the telling of his stories, with beautifully his flawed, human characters. For that reason, I picked this book off the shelf. For the mystery and glimpse into a different world that the jacket blurb promised, I decided to read it.Set in Portuguese Africa (Mozambique) in the early 1900's, Mankell's novel is based on one true fact he had learned: a Swedish woman was once the owner of one of the largest brothels in Maputo. She was also one of the largest tax-payers. Then, just as suddenly as she appeared in the records, she disappeared. Mankell has taken that fact and woven a life for a woman born in Sweden, last seen in Mozambique, around it.To me, it was extra-poignant to read this story, with so much racial tension inherent in it, as the fiftieth anniversary of Civil Rights March on Washington approaches. I was a child, living in the DC area at the time, and I remember the impact vividly, even though I didn't get to the event, itself. Looking back, I am amazed how far we have come, and how much farther we have to go. The book was excellent punctuation to my own internal dialogue.Don't look for Wallander in this book. You won't find him. But you will find an interesting tale that is written in more than black and white.
    • 2/5
      I'm a huge fan of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander mysteries as well as his stand alones so when I saw he had a new novel I rushed out to get it. The premise sounded really interesting. A young Swedish woman, Hanna Renstrom, leaves Sweden for Australia in 1904 as a ship's cook. While on the voyage she marries and then is quickly widowed. At the port of Lourenco Marques (Portuguese East Africa, now Mozambique) she deserts the ship and checks into what she thinks is a local hotel but is actually a brothel. Within a very short time she marries again, inherits the brothel, and becomes a significantly wealthy woman.

      The story takes place over about two years and I was surprised at how much Hanna changes in that short time. She sees how brutally the African population is treated and sees herself becoming just as bigoted and cruel. She is appalled at the colonial justice system which is so unfair to both Africans and women. Hanna tries to help an African woman accused of killing her husband as a way to alleviate the guilt she becomes obsessed with. Hanna seems to be driven mad by the racism and hypocrisy of the county.

      I have to say I just didn't enjoy the book that much. I thought it was a very slow start, the characters were not very interesting and I didn't really like Hanna. I did like Senhor Vaz, as well as Carlos, a tame chimpanzee who wears a white coat and serves tea. I did enjoy the last third of the book and was intrigued and appalled by the descriptions of colonial Africa. I think there are some great novels out there about Africa but I'm afraid I can't include this one.
    • 2/5
      A bit of a torturous read about treachery and not much paradise included. As I often say, not disappointed to have read and finished it. However, believe you must be a Mankell afficionado to get the most from this novel. I've watched his Wallender series and enjoyed it. This is the first of his books I've read. Certainly some interesting concepts, but much about young Hanna seemed implausible and "stretched". The sequences in her history were unique and interesting, however. Had to work a bit to finish it, and then the ending was . . . . . . .
    • 4/5
      3.5 rounded to a 4. One of Mankell's stand-alone novels. Setting in 1904 Sweden and Portuguese East Africa [Mozambique]. Interesting premise, based on a snippet Mankell had read and from which he imagined and based a whole story: a Swedish woman came out of nowhere, ran a brothel, then just as suddenly as she came, disappeared into obscurity.Fascinating how Mankell created a whole persona for this woman he calls Hanna and a life for her. Then he gives her motivation for finally leaving: apartheid and the whole imbalanced social order, and how useless is her fight against a whole society to save a black woman from death. I'd call this novel one of the author's polemics against injustice, but couched in soft terms. The novel was thought-provoking and I will not forget it soon.
    • 1/5
      I wasn't really impressed with Mankell's writing or this story. His historical references felt off the cuff and unresearched, and he seemed to lean to heavily on modern political points of view. Also, his writing style was incredibly staccato, and I felt like it totally prevented the story from flowing--which didn't help its readability (or lack thereof). Too bad, the premise was quite promising and I was excited for this one.
    • 4/5
      This takes place just after 1900. A poor Swedish girl from the north is sent to a coast city by her mother when famine arrives. She signs onto a boat as a cook, marries, her husband dies and she gets off the boat in Mozambique, ends up head of a brothel, tries to find herself.
    • 3/5
      In the opening chapters of A Treacherous Paradise, by Henning Mankell, a young woman leaves a life of desperate poverty in rural Sweden in 1904 to seek her fortune aboard a sailing ship set for Australia. The beginning took me back to my own grandmother’s flight from Sweden a few years later, in 1908. After reading this book, I felt more strongly the hardships and dislocation she must have faced, sent out as a servant at the age of twelve and then boarding a ship for a strange land at the age of 18. While my grandmother ended up in America, Hanna, the heroine of this novel, embarks on a picaresque adventure that drops her serendipitously in a hot and segregated town on the coast of Portuguese East Africa, where she becomes the owner of a bordello. The story of Hanna’s time in East Africa reminded me of Gulliver’s Travels--and indeed Mankell refers to this work in the novel. His heroine sees many sights that amaze her, from a long tapeworm that inhabits a human body, to a magical potion that allows the owner to fly away unseen, to a chimpanzee that acts like a human. Mankell returns here to a favorite theme in his novels: the injustices of colonialism and the effects of racism on society. The author’s use of symbolism is at times heavy-handed: for example, the white dogs bred to attack black bodies. Hanna herself plays the role of an unwitting observer of the racism and injustice around her and seems as trapped by her circumstances as the African prostitutes in the bordello. The motives behind her decisions remain opaque, leading from one lucky or unlucky result to another and leaving the reader bemused. And Hanna, whose name changes several times in the course of the novel, like a butterfly in metamorphosis, seems equally bemused by the motives of those around her. In this hothouse of a colonial past, the behavior of Africans and of European colonists is itself the mystery, one that I suspect even Detective Wallander could not unravel.
    • 5/5
      When poverty forces Hannah Lundmark to leave Sweden in 1904, she ends up in Mozambique where she finds refuge in a brothel. Hannah’s story is one of rags to riches as she ends up marrying the owner of the brothel and inherits his wealth when he dies. The storyline is interesting as her life unfolds, but what makes this book powerful is Hannah’s introduction to segregation and how Europeans looked at the natives of Africa. She finds herself fighting bigotry and constantly examining her motives as she interacts with people on Portuguese East Africa. Mankell is able bring vivid imagery to his writing. His afterword about what brought him to write this story is a must read after reading the story.