The Rock Blaster

At 3p.m. on a Saturday afternoon in 1911 Oskar Johansson is caught in a blast in an industrial accident. The local newspaper reports him dead but they are mistaken. Though crippled Oskar finds the strength to go on living and working. The Rock Blaster charts his long professional life - his hopes and dreams sorrows and joys. His relationship with the woman whose love saved him with the labour movement that gave him a cause to believe in and with his children who do not share his ideals. Remarkably assured Henning Mankell's debut is written with scalpel-like precision at once poetic and insightful in its depiction of a true working-class hero.