Edited by Jim McCrory, Monday 18 May 2026 at 19:49
Stylistic Choices in Henning Mankell’s Quicksand:
What It Means to Be a Human Being: A Critical Reading
“Privacy is for the diary, and essays are for the reader”
Dinty Moore
I was first introduced to the personal essay in 2014 when I read Henning Mankell’s nonfiction work Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being (Mankell, 2014). It was a watershed moment for me. I had a deep desire to write about my life, but I harboured mixed feelings about how interesting it would be. These essays introduced me to a different way of writing memoir.
Quicksand, Mankell’s final work before his death, covers the months following a terminal cancer diagnosis. My first impression was formed by the essay titles. Themes such as “The Raft of Death” and “Turning Time in a Different Direction” were captivating. Throughout the sixty-seven personal essays, Mankell explores fascinating facts, philosophy, environmental issues, and profound musings. The intimacy of his first-person active voice made me feel as though he had granted me the honour of sitting beside him while his wisdom and literary prowess unfolded.
Throughout the essays, there is a conspicuous lucidity and economy of syntax that functions as a stylistic default. The language is spare but strikingly beautiful. Like a seasoned poet, Mankell selects words carefully. Adjectives and adverbs are used sparingly. Strong verbs are often positioned towards the ends of sentences, while passive constructions remain minimal. He possesses an ability to crystallise complex concepts with remarkable clarity. These qualities were especially important to me. As an academic essayist in Social Psychology and English Literature, I often failed to achieve encouraging results because of a lack of clarity. “Too much verbosity,” one tutor kindly observed. Mankell’s work gave me confidence to pursue creative writing with renewed faith in my ability to write clearly while still captivating the reader.
The persona that Mankell projects throughout the sixty-seven essays is one that John Burnside of The Guardian describes as “serious” (Burnside, 2014). Mankell writes, “Your identity is formed when you decide your attitude towards serious questions. That is something known to everyone who has not forgotten all about their childhood” (Mankell, 2014, p. 14). This earnest tone possesses considerable merit because it faithfully reflects the gravity of the subject matter. However, seriousness should not be confused with gloom or despair. Essays dealing with terminal cancer, nuclear waste disposal, premature death, and humanity’s irrational choices could easily gravitate towards pessimism. Yet Quicksand is by no means the work of an author suffering from a Cassandra complex. Instead, despite what would be for many a debilitating diagnosis, Mankell maintains a positive and uplifting literary decorum.
“I’m in the middle of something,” he writes (Mankell, 2014, p. 8). This suspended state becomes crucial as an organising principle throughout the book. The title essay, “Quicksand,” establishes the motif that structures the entire work. In A802, I recall a reflective question asking readers to select three essays and explain what makes them essayistic. This prompted me to examine the title essay more closely. I broke it down into its principal components and scenes:
the shrinking realisation that cancer is encroaching upon life
the childhood discovery that death is a serious reality
a memory of a village girl falling through ice and dying
the community’s reaction to the tragedy
the author’s fear of falling into quicksand
the debunking of myths surrounding quicksand (Mankell, 2014, pp. 14–17)
These “essayistic” digressive forays arrive from multiple directions as Mankell “wheels and dives like a hawk,” moving in a seemingly discursive manner that is nevertheless masterfully controlled as he guides the reader towards a conclusion (Lopate, 1995, p. xxviii). Additionally, his use of narrative framing, including flashbacks and flash-forwards between his childhood and present self, creates narrative arcs that control pace, tension, and surprise.
The quicksand metaphor also becomes part of the hero’s journey. Just as the mythological qualities attributed to quicksand are exaggerated, cancer too will not overwhelm Mankell’s joie de vivre. He writes:
“Just as everything in my life has changed, a new morning brings with it a fresh challenge. I have to think about something other than my illness” (Mankell, 2014, p. 16).
Herein lies Mankell’s thematic approach: to think about something other than illness. As one New Statesman columnist observed, Mankell’s work is “unsentimental and devoid of any sense of being a victim” (Smith, 2016).
On initial reading, Mankell’s organisational structure appears deceptively simple: sixty-seven essays overtly or covertly connected to what it means to be human. However, closer inspection reveals layers of subtlety. There is considerable repetition linked to the quicksand motif: life is serious; life is survival; life is death; time is running out; moments are fleeting; fear, hope, and happiness coexist.
Beyond the quicksand motif, Mankell frequently revisits ideas from previous essays, reconsidering them from different perspectives and connecting them to broader themes. This led me to question one critic who described the essays as “fragmentary”; a closer reading would have disabused him of such an error (Khan, 2016). For example, in the early essay “The Future is Hidden Underground,” Mankell discusses the dangers of buried nuclear waste for future generations. Yet in essay sixty-six, “The Puppet on a String,” he reflects upon the discovery of a twenty-five-thousand-year-old body found in the Czech Republic. Beside the remains was “a doll. A marionette. A puppet on a string” (Mankell, 2014, p. 293). Mankell writes:
“When it was dug up, it sent a message from people living 25,000 years ago … The ancient puppet on a string tells us what being human has always entailed. I find it difficult to imagine a more touching and humorous greeting from people living just after an ice age. Those of us living today will not be sending puppets on a string into the future. Our legacy is nuclear waste” (Mankell, 2014, pp. 293–294).
Through repetition and the reintroduction of narrative strands, Mankell sustains thematic continuity while simultaneously surprising the reader with poignant new perspectives (O’Reilly, 2022). Although I have not yet applied this technique in a major project, I hope to adopt it in my final submission.
Mankell revisits aspects of life through a series of flashbacks that reveal lessons about what it means to be human; a journey structure stylistically suited to this work (O’Reilly, 2022). The reader gradually realises that Mankell is experiencing what Phillips describes as “enlarging one’s experience” as the prospect of oblivion forces him to confront a new stage of existence (Phillips, 2013, p. 389). This is equally true for the reader, as the themes explored possess universal resonance.
In his search for self-understanding, Mankell casts a wide net. In the essay “People Reluctantly on Their Way into the Shadows,” he develops an expository scene through a walk to observe a painting located in a church near his home. The painting, completed in 1770 and commissioned by Gustaf Frederik Hjortberg, depicts not only living family members but also children who had already died — a copy of which can be viewed online (Wikimedia Commons, 2022). The deceased children appear as ghostly figures: disembodied presences neither fully absent nor fully present. In the case of one child, only part of the forehead and one eye remain visible. Hjortberg believed that, although their brief lives on earth had ended, they should not be excluded from the family portrait.
Mankell carefully walks the reader through the scene before reflecting upon its implications. He writes:
“What is so touching is the reluctance of the dead children to disappear. I know of no other picture that depicts so vividly the stubborn determination for life to continue” (Mankell, 2014, p. 8).
In only a sentence or two, fluid in its elegant phrasing, vivid imagery, and emotional depth, an entire world of thought reveals itself. Mankell’s stylistic choices captivate the reader through strong narrative control, trustworthy authorial presence, and reflective engagement with the complexity of his subject matter (Williams, 2013, pp. 34–35).
I adopted a similar approach in an essay entitled “The Ship of Theseus.” I introduced the thought experiment of the Ship of Theseus as a metaphor for the continual renewal of the human body. The essay emerged while revisiting a place. Like Mankell, I wandered into metaphysical reflection. I stood in a once vibrant location that had become desolate of human life, though still alive in memory. I concluded:
“Like the Ship of Theseus, we are designed for a great voyage where the past will never return, but its joys will be eternally relived in the great renewal.”
“Upliftingly serious” may sound oxymoronic, yet it accurately describes several of the refreshing essays strategically placed amidst the book’s heavier themes. Essay fifty-two, “The Happiness Brought by a Rickety Lorry in the Spring,” recalls a childhood memory from a small village where “nothing unexpected ever happened” (Mankell, 2014, pp. 227–229). The narrative is simple yet captivating in its lucid prose:
“The outside world had come to visit me. It was like a greeting from a country and people beyond the endless forests that radiated out from the little valley with the freezing cold river where I lived” (Mankell, 2014, p. 226).
Here, Mankell contrasts the warmth of “radiated” with the harshness of “freezing.” He captures the intimacy of childhood wonder through the innocent declaration that “the outside world had come to visit me.” Such structural interludes create balance amid the more emotionally demanding material.
In his essay “Backtalk,” Richard Hoffman discusses memoir as a means of resisting societal manipulation. He writes:
“It may be that, in our moment, the impulse to write memoir, the marriage of the personal essay with dramatic narrative, stems largely from the overload experienced by writers driven back by the torrent of propaganda that attempts to shape a consensus through the media” (Hoffman, 2011).
In Mankell’s fifth essay, “The Future is Hidden Underground,” his ethical concerns emerge prominently. He writes:
“The first time I heard the word ‘onkalo’ was in the autumn of 2012.”
Onkalo is a Finnish word meaning cavity or cavern (Mankell, 2014, pp. 18–22). Mankell discusses Finland’s plans to bury nuclear waste deep beneath the earth — waste that will remain dangerous for one hundred thousand years. The article appears buried within a newspaper column surrounded by celebrity gossip. Mankell reflects upon humanity’s reluctance to engage seriously with matters extending beyond trivial concerns. In an interview, he described his role as correcting humanity’s irrationality (Louisiana Channel, 2012). Consequently, he uses the essay form to challenge reassuring narratives surrounding nuclear safety:
“How is it possible to store lethal waste for millennia when the oldest man-made edifices reach back only five or six thousand years?”
Here, Mankell’s humanitarian socialism informs the merging of personal reflection with broader political concerns (Phillips, 2015).
I similarly combined the personal with wider social concerns while exploring marginalised voices (O’Reilly, 2022). By coincidence, while visiting Cumbria and reflecting upon my assignment, I met a man named Chris in an outdoor café. Chris, who was on the autistic spectrum, was walking around Britain not by choice but because he had become homeless following domestic abuse. I found myself confronting my own assumptions regarding homelessness, realising that I had stereotyped homeless people as addicts or alcoholics. Like Mankell, I chose to combine personal reflection with broader social issues, particularly society’s reluctance — including my own — to respond compassionately to marginalised individuals.
Ultimately, there are notable limitations within Mankell’s work. There is considerable telling rather than showing, largely due to the infrequent use of dialogue. Characters can appear two-dimensional, while some essays feel underdeveloped. There is also limited self-disclosure. As Dinty Moore observes, “Privacy is for the diary, and essays are for the reader” (Moore, 2010, p. 9). The individual receiving the greatest attention is Mankell’s father, a small-town judge who questioned his son’s youthful decision to move to Paris and become a writer: “Who has ever heard of a sixteen-year-old author?” Beyond this, there is little discussion of Mankell’s personal relationships despite four marriages and several children. Such restraint may disappoint readers seeking deeper revelation within the personal essay (Lopate, 1995, pp. xxvii–xxviii).
Granted, Mankell writes with an acute awareness that time is running out; therefore, he lacks the luxury of endless rumination characteristic of earlier essayists such as Montaigne. This may partly explain the limitations of the essays. Given more time, Mankell may have approached the work differently.
In summation, Mankell’s stylistic choices are skilfully constructed to guide the reader through an uplifting and reflective journey. He refuses to allow cancer to rob him of the time that remains, instead adopting a serious yet hopeful outlook on the world. Ultimately, he leaves humanity with a message of cautionary hope.
Khan, B. (2016) ‘Literature: “Quicksand”: Mankell writes about cancer’, The Lancet Oncology. Available at: https://www.thelancet.com (Accessed: 4 March 2022).
Lopate, P. (1995) The Art of the Personal Essay. New York: Anchor Books.
Louisiana Channel (2012) Henning Mankell Interview: My Responsibility is to React [Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khFcfrST5-M (Accessed: 4 March 2022).
Mankell, H. (2014) Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being. London: Harvill Secker.
Moore, D. (2010) Crafting the Personal Essay. USA: Writer’s Digest Books.
O’Reilly, S. (2022) ‘Journey and theme’, in Block 3: Creative Nonfiction: Chapter 8 Advanced Structure. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Available at: https://www.open.ac.uk (Accessed: 12 March 2022).
O’Reilly, S. (2022) ‘Marginalised voices’, in Block 2: Creative Nonfiction: Chapter 4 Wider Issues/Engagement. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Available at: https://www.open.ac.uk (Accessed: 12 March 2022).
Phillips, A. (2013) One Way and Another. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Phillips, A. (2015) Late Night Live: Henning Mankell: A Tribute [Video]. ABC Radio National Australia. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational (Accessed: 2 March 2022).
Smith, A. (2016) ‘Henning Mankell’s Quicksand is a grave, yet intensely beautiful, book’, New Statesman. Available at: https://www.newstatesman.com (Accessed: 9 March 2022).
Wikimedia Commons (2022) ‘File: Gustaf Fredrik Hjortberg.jpg’. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org (Accessed: 12 March 2022).
Williams, B. T. (2013) ‘Writing creative nonfiction’, in Harper, G. (ed.) A Companion to Creative Writing. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 24–39.
Stylistic Choices in Henning Mankell’s Quicksand
Stylistic Choices in Henning Mankell’s Quicksand:
What It Means to Be a Human Being: A Critical Reading
“Privacy is for the diary, and essays are for the reader”
Dinty Moore
I was first introduced to the personal essay in 2014 when I read Henning Mankell’s nonfiction work Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being (Mankell, 2014). It was a watershed moment for me. I had a deep desire to write about my life, but I harboured mixed feelings about how interesting it would be. These essays introduced me to a different way of writing memoir.
Quicksand, Mankell’s final work before his death, covers the months following a terminal cancer diagnosis. My first impression was formed by the essay titles. Themes such as “The Raft of Death” and “Turning Time in a Different Direction” were captivating. Throughout the sixty-seven personal essays, Mankell explores fascinating facts, philosophy, environmental issues, and profound musings. The intimacy of his first-person active voice made me feel as though he had granted me the honour of sitting beside him while his wisdom and literary prowess unfolded.
Throughout the essays, there is a conspicuous lucidity and economy of syntax that functions as a stylistic default. The language is spare but strikingly beautiful. Like a seasoned poet, Mankell selects words carefully. Adjectives and adverbs are used sparingly. Strong verbs are often positioned towards the ends of sentences, while passive constructions remain minimal. He possesses an ability to crystallise complex concepts with remarkable clarity. These qualities were especially important to me. As an academic essayist in Social Psychology and English Literature, I often failed to achieve encouraging results because of a lack of clarity. “Too much verbosity,” one tutor kindly observed. Mankell’s work gave me confidence to pursue creative writing with renewed faith in my ability to write clearly while still captivating the reader.
The persona that Mankell projects throughout the sixty-seven essays is one that John Burnside of The Guardian describes as “serious” (Burnside, 2014). Mankell writes, “Your identity is formed when you decide your attitude towards serious questions. That is something known to everyone who has not forgotten all about their childhood” (Mankell, 2014, p. 14). This earnest tone possesses considerable merit because it faithfully reflects the gravity of the subject matter. However, seriousness should not be confused with gloom or despair. Essays dealing with terminal cancer, nuclear waste disposal, premature death, and humanity’s irrational choices could easily gravitate towards pessimism. Yet Quicksand is by no means the work of an author suffering from a Cassandra complex. Instead, despite what would be for many a debilitating diagnosis, Mankell maintains a positive and uplifting literary decorum.
“I’m in the middle of something,” he writes (Mankell, 2014, p. 8). This suspended state becomes crucial as an organising principle throughout the book. The title essay, “Quicksand,” establishes the motif that structures the entire work. In A802, I recall a reflective question asking readers to select three essays and explain what makes them essayistic. This prompted me to examine the title essay more closely. I broke it down into its principal components and scenes:
These “essayistic” digressive forays arrive from multiple directions as Mankell “wheels and dives like a hawk,” moving in a seemingly discursive manner that is nevertheless masterfully controlled as he guides the reader towards a conclusion (Lopate, 1995, p. xxviii). Additionally, his use of narrative framing, including flashbacks and flash-forwards between his childhood and present self, creates narrative arcs that control pace, tension, and surprise.
The quicksand metaphor also becomes part of the hero’s journey. Just as the mythological qualities attributed to quicksand are exaggerated, cancer too will not overwhelm Mankell’s joie de vivre. He writes:
“Just as everything in my life has changed, a new morning brings with it a fresh challenge. I have to think about something other than my illness” (Mankell, 2014, p. 16).
Herein lies Mankell’s thematic approach: to think about something other than illness. As one New Statesman columnist observed, Mankell’s work is “unsentimental and devoid of any sense of being a victim” (Smith, 2016).
On initial reading, Mankell’s organisational structure appears deceptively simple: sixty-seven essays overtly or covertly connected to what it means to be human. However, closer inspection reveals layers of subtlety. There is considerable repetition linked to the quicksand motif: life is serious; life is survival; life is death; time is running out; moments are fleeting; fear, hope, and happiness coexist.
Beyond the quicksand motif, Mankell frequently revisits ideas from previous essays, reconsidering them from different perspectives and connecting them to broader themes. This led me to question one critic who described the essays as “fragmentary”; a closer reading would have disabused him of such an error (Khan, 2016). For example, in the early essay “The Future is Hidden Underground,” Mankell discusses the dangers of buried nuclear waste for future generations. Yet in essay sixty-six, “The Puppet on a String,” he reflects upon the discovery of a twenty-five-thousand-year-old body found in the Czech Republic. Beside the remains was “a doll. A marionette. A puppet on a string” (Mankell, 2014, p. 293). Mankell writes:
“When it was dug up, it sent a message from people living 25,000 years ago … The ancient puppet on a string tells us what being human has always entailed. I find it difficult to imagine a more touching and humorous greeting from people living just after an ice age. Those of us living today will not be sending puppets on a string into the future. Our legacy is nuclear waste” (Mankell, 2014, pp. 293–294).
Through repetition and the reintroduction of narrative strands, Mankell sustains thematic continuity while simultaneously surprising the reader with poignant new perspectives (O’Reilly, 2022). Although I have not yet applied this technique in a major project, I hope to adopt it in my final submission.
Mankell revisits aspects of life through a series of flashbacks that reveal lessons about what it means to be human; a journey structure stylistically suited to this work (O’Reilly, 2022). The reader gradually realises that Mankell is experiencing what Phillips describes as “enlarging one’s experience” as the prospect of oblivion forces him to confront a new stage of existence (Phillips, 2013, p. 389). This is equally true for the reader, as the themes explored possess universal resonance.
In his search for self-understanding, Mankell casts a wide net. In the essay “People Reluctantly on Their Way into the Shadows,” he develops an expository scene through a walk to observe a painting located in a church near his home. The painting, completed in 1770 and commissioned by Gustaf Frederik Hjortberg, depicts not only living family members but also children who had already died — a copy of which can be viewed online (Wikimedia Commons, 2022). The deceased children appear as ghostly figures: disembodied presences neither fully absent nor fully present. In the case of one child, only part of the forehead and one eye remain visible. Hjortberg believed that, although their brief lives on earth had ended, they should not be excluded from the family portrait.
Mankell carefully walks the reader through the scene before reflecting upon its implications. He writes:
“What is so touching is the reluctance of the dead children to disappear. I know of no other picture that depicts so vividly the stubborn determination for life to continue” (Mankell, 2014, p. 8).
In only a sentence or two, fluid in its elegant phrasing, vivid imagery, and emotional depth, an entire world of thought reveals itself. Mankell’s stylistic choices captivate the reader through strong narrative control, trustworthy authorial presence, and reflective engagement with the complexity of his subject matter (Williams, 2013, pp. 34–35).
I adopted a similar approach in an essay entitled “The Ship of Theseus.” I introduced the thought experiment of the Ship of Theseus as a metaphor for the continual renewal of the human body. The essay emerged while revisiting a place. Like Mankell, I wandered into metaphysical reflection. I stood in a once vibrant location that had become desolate of human life, though still alive in memory. I concluded:
“Like the Ship of Theseus, we are designed for a great voyage where the past will never return, but its joys will be eternally relived in the great renewal.”
“Upliftingly serious” may sound oxymoronic, yet it accurately describes several of the refreshing essays strategically placed amidst the book’s heavier themes. Essay fifty-two, “The Happiness Brought by a Rickety Lorry in the Spring,” recalls a childhood memory from a small village where “nothing unexpected ever happened” (Mankell, 2014, pp. 227–229). The narrative is simple yet captivating in its lucid prose:
“The outside world had come to visit me. It was like a greeting from a country and people beyond the endless forests that radiated out from the little valley with the freezing cold river where I lived” (Mankell, 2014, p. 226).
Here, Mankell contrasts the warmth of “radiated” with the harshness of “freezing.” He captures the intimacy of childhood wonder through the innocent declaration that “the outside world had come to visit me.” Such structural interludes create balance amid the more emotionally demanding material.
In his essay “Backtalk,” Richard Hoffman discusses memoir as a means of resisting societal manipulation. He writes:
“It may be that, in our moment, the impulse to write memoir, the marriage of the personal essay with dramatic narrative, stems largely from the overload experienced by writers driven back by the torrent of propaganda that attempts to shape a consensus through the media” (Hoffman, 2011).
In Mankell’s fifth essay, “The Future is Hidden Underground,” his ethical concerns emerge prominently. He writes:
“The first time I heard the word ‘onkalo’ was in the autumn of 2012.”
Onkalo is a Finnish word meaning cavity or cavern (Mankell, 2014, pp. 18–22). Mankell discusses Finland’s plans to bury nuclear waste deep beneath the earth — waste that will remain dangerous for one hundred thousand years. The article appears buried within a newspaper column surrounded by celebrity gossip. Mankell reflects upon humanity’s reluctance to engage seriously with matters extending beyond trivial concerns. In an interview, he described his role as correcting humanity’s irrationality (Louisiana Channel, 2012). Consequently, he uses the essay form to challenge reassuring narratives surrounding nuclear safety:
“How is it possible to store lethal waste for millennia when the oldest man-made edifices reach back only five or six thousand years?”
Here, Mankell’s humanitarian socialism informs the merging of personal reflection with broader political concerns (Phillips, 2015).
I similarly combined the personal with wider social concerns while exploring marginalised voices (O’Reilly, 2022). By coincidence, while visiting Cumbria and reflecting upon my assignment, I met a man named Chris in an outdoor café. Chris, who was on the autistic spectrum, was walking around Britain not by choice but because he had become homeless following domestic abuse. I found myself confronting my own assumptions regarding homelessness, realising that I had stereotyped homeless people as addicts or alcoholics. Like Mankell, I chose to combine personal reflection with broader social issues, particularly society’s reluctance — including my own — to respond compassionately to marginalised individuals.
Ultimately, there are notable limitations within Mankell’s work. There is considerable telling rather than showing, largely due to the infrequent use of dialogue. Characters can appear two-dimensional, while some essays feel underdeveloped. There is also limited self-disclosure. As Dinty Moore observes, “Privacy is for the diary, and essays are for the reader” (Moore, 2010, p. 9). The individual receiving the greatest attention is Mankell’s father, a small-town judge who questioned his son’s youthful decision to move to Paris and become a writer: “Who has ever heard of a sixteen-year-old author?” Beyond this, there is little discussion of Mankell’s personal relationships despite four marriages and several children. Such restraint may disappoint readers seeking deeper revelation within the personal essay (Lopate, 1995, pp. xxvii–xxviii).
Granted, Mankell writes with an acute awareness that time is running out; therefore, he lacks the luxury of endless rumination characteristic of earlier essayists such as Montaigne. This may partly explain the limitations of the essays. Given more time, Mankell may have approached the work differently.
In summation, Mankell’s stylistic choices are skilfully constructed to guide the reader through an uplifting and reflective journey. He refuses to allow cancer to rob him of the time that remains, instead adopting a serious yet hopeful outlook on the world. Ultimately, he leaves humanity with a message of cautionary hope.
Word Count: 2,365
References
Burnside, J. (2014) ‘Quicksand by Henning Mankell review – uplifting, serious reflections on what it means to be human’, The Guardian, 4 September. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/04/quicksand-henning-mankell-review (Accessed: 11 March 2022).
Hoffman, R. (2011) ‘Backtalk: Notes Toward an Essay on Memoir’. Available at: http://richardhoffman.org/backtalk-notes-toward-an-essay-on-memoir/ (Accessed: 4 March 2022).
Khan, B. (2016) ‘Literature: “Quicksand”: Mankell writes about cancer’, The Lancet Oncology. Available at: https://www.thelancet.com (Accessed: 4 March 2022).
Lopate, P. (1995) The Art of the Personal Essay. New York: Anchor Books.
Louisiana Channel (2012) Henning Mankell Interview: My Responsibility is to React [Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khFcfrST5-M (Accessed: 4 March 2022).
Mankell, H. (2014) Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being. London: Harvill Secker.
Moore, D. (2010) Crafting the Personal Essay. USA: Writer’s Digest Books.
O’Reilly, S. (2022) ‘Journey and theme’, in Block 3: Creative Nonfiction: Chapter 8 Advanced Structure. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Available at: https://www.open.ac.uk (Accessed: 12 March 2022).
O’Reilly, S. (2022) ‘Marginalised voices’, in Block 2: Creative Nonfiction: Chapter 4 Wider Issues/Engagement. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Available at: https://www.open.ac.uk (Accessed: 12 March 2022).
Phillips, A. (2013) One Way and Another. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Phillips, A. (2015) Late Night Live: Henning Mankell: A Tribute [Video]. ABC Radio National Australia. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational (Accessed: 2 March 2022).
Smith, A. (2016) ‘Henning Mankell’s Quicksand is a grave, yet intensely beautiful, book’, New Statesman. Available at: https://www.newstatesman.com (Accessed: 9 March 2022).
Wikimedia Commons (2022) ‘File: Gustaf Fredrik Hjortberg.jpg’. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org (Accessed: 12 March 2022).
Williams, B. T. (2013) ‘Writing creative nonfiction’, in Harper, G. (ed.) A Companion to Creative Writing. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 24–39.