Jerzy Haszczyński: For Icelanders, living beside the ocean proved decisive

For nearly two decades, Jerzy Haszczyński read a great deal of crime fiction, despite once believing that detective novels were a waste of time. He thought they added little, disappeared from the mind quickly, and offered only slightly different detectives and crimes.

That changed unexpectedly when he saw the name Henning Mankell at the top of the literary bestseller list published weekly by an important German newspaper. Mankell could, in theory, have been German, Haszczyński writes. He turned out to be Swedish, and the novel that dominated Germany’s sales for weeks was a crime story.

Haszczyński says he became absorbed in Mankell’s work and read everything by him. He also introduced several colleagues to the author.

The article’s headline links Nordic crime fiction with Iceland’s distinctive relationship with the sea. Haszczyński recalls hearing Iceland’s foreign minister say in 2022, “Our neighbour is the ocean.” The available text presents the piece as a reflection on whether Nordic crime novels still deserve readers’ attention.

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Our neighbour is the ocean.