The Talisman by Jan Guillou and Henning Mankell

As many of you probaly know, Jan Guillou and Henning Mankell are two of Swedens most renowned authors. Guillou was a hard-hitting journalist in the 70'ies and was condemned to prison for two years for espionage when he disclosed irregularities and illegal registration of peope who didn't belong to the social democratic party. In the 80'ies and 90'ies he wrote international successful spy novels, and a lot of TV-series about detectives and police work, sometimes with the criminologist Leif G W Persson. Guillou is also a vindicator for immigrant easements, especially the muslims, who automatically have been treated as terrorists (especially the Kurds) by means of the Swedish anti-terrorist laws (15 years before World Trade Center). In his last four novels about a the one and only Swedish crusader Arn, it's due to the superior muslim civilization (compared with Sweden, which was governed by warlords) and Arn's friendship with Saladin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin), Sweden ultimately became an united kingdom (movie: "Arn: The Knight Templar", 2007). "The Talisman" (Talismanen, 2003) is a TV-series, which has old islamic magic and mysticism as an take-off point, with entailments for Sweden today.

The author Henning Mankell is best known for his novels about detective Kurt Wallander at the criminal investigation department in Ystad in south Sweden. Mankell actually lives in Mozambique half of the year and is working as theatre manager and director of Teatro Avenida in Maputo. The script of "The Talisman" was carried out in that way that Mankell and Guillou wrote every second chapter. Co-operation between Mankell and Guillou is something I want to see again.

"Noble have I created thee, rise then unto that for which thou wast created." – www.bahai.org