He tells a story to illustrate his point

Mankell, fourth from left, headed for Gaza. Photo: Kate Geraghty Best known for his crime thrillers, Henning Mankell is now making a film about his notorious father-in-law, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. THE Scandinavians are taking over the world, or at least the world of crime fiction. Walk through a railway station or airport or anywhere where they still sell books and you will see the Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo novels piled high. You're also very likely to find several of Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell's Wallander stories, which are said to have sold more than 30 million copies. Put it to Mankell that the whole of Britain seems obsessed with yarns about Scandinavian detectives and he wryly observes: ''I can assure you it's not only England.'' He tells a story to illustrate his point. Last year, he was on a book tour in Argentina. He was due to give a speech and was very nervous that no one at all would turn up. In fact, more than 1000 Wallander lovers appeared as if from nowhere. Speaking from Sweden, where he has been attending the Gothenburg Book Fair, Mankell ponders the reasons for the extraordinary global popularity of Nordic detectives. ''Naturally, I've been thinking about it,'' he tells me. ''One [reason] must be pure coincidence. The second is that I guess I worked as a locomotive in some ways. My success has been an inspiration for others. You remember the tennis player Bjorn Borg? Before that, Sweden had very few good tennis players. After that, we suddenly had a hell of a lot. Maybe that is one kind of explanation.'' Advertisement: Story continues below Henning Mankell Photo: Cato Lein The main subject of my interview isn't Larsson or Borg. Nor is it the psychology and unlikely appeal of the morose Detective Kurt Wallander. It is Mankell's ongoing attempts to make an ambitious TV drama and feature film about his father-in-law, Ingmar Bergman - a project interrupted in surreal fashion by the Israeli army. Last year Mankell was aboard the Gaza-bound aid flotilla that was attacked by Israeli forces Rosetta Stone . To his consternation, part of the screenplay for his new film about Bergman was confiscated by the Israeli soldiers. ''Whatever I do, I am always working on something,'' says Mankell, explaining how he happened to have the Bergman screenplay in his possession at the same time as he was taking part in a mission to bring aid supplies to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli blockade. ''When everything was stolen and confiscated, they [the Israeli troops] also took the manuscript,'' he recalls. ''What the hell are they supposed to do with that?'' He jokes that the Israelis must have thought the screenplay - called Crisis, in deference to Bergman's directorial debut - was written in code. Mankell doubts that the young commando soldiers who took the screenplay even knew who Bergman was. Mankell, 62, has spent many years living and working in Africa. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was a political activist, campaigning against apartheid in South Africa and the US war in Vietnam. Being aboard the Gaza flotilla didn't scare him at all. ''I am not an afraid person,'' he blithely states. ''In all the years I have lived in Africa, I have had some quite terrible experiences. What I still think about today is how very stupidly they [the Israeli army] behaved. If they really had had the ambition just to stop the flotilla, they should have done something with the rudder and propellers,'' he reflects on the incident, which left nine flotilla members dead, saw him arrested and provoked a huge international row. The crime writer's outspoken opinions about the Middle East have been well chronicled. He likens the plight of the Palestinians to that of black South Africans in the apartheid era and expresses his confidence that the Gaza blockade will be broken. He has no intention of letting up on his activism. ''I am a very dangerous man because I know that we managed to crush the apartheid system in South Africa without violence.

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