Henning Mankell remembered by Kenneth Branagh

3 February 1948 - 5 October 2015
The actor starred as the Swedish crime writer’s detective Kurt Wallander. Here, he recalls his last meal with the man he came to know as a good friend

• Read the Observer’s obituaries of 2015 in full here
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The last time I met Henning Mankell was in Copenhagen, on a cold December’s evening in the winter of 2014. We met in the restaurant of a hotel on the harbour. In the seven years that we had known each other, we made 12 television films from his Wallander books and talked together regularly.

With Henning, the subjects were usually, and in no particular order, Africa, politics, the sea, theatre and family. He was a serious man. No small talk. He valued his time carefully.

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