Jak pogodzić się z nieuchronnym? Ars moriendi według Henninga Mankella

Abstract

The text concerns the colorful character of the Swedish writer Henning Mankell (1948–2015), whose various activities went far beyond the universally understood role of the creator of literature. He is known not only as of the creator of criminal novels, moral, children’s literature and playwright but also as a social activist, an observer of changes taking place in his native Sweden and a critic of relations prevailing in the modern world. Part of my reflection relates to Mankell’s latest book, Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being (Polish: Grząskie piaski), which is a kind of the writer’s farewell to readers and the world. The awareness of the inevitable death caused the essays that make up the book to be very personal, and at the same time showing the attitude of man in the face of death. This attitude has the hallmarks of a universal human experience of the end of life.