Sofia is the young Mozambican heroine of two “young adult” documentary novels, Secrets in the Fire (1995/2000) and Playing with Fire (2001/2002), by Henning Mankell, an internationally acclaimed Swedish writer of detective novels who lives half of each year in sub-Saharan Africa. In the first book, Sofia – who is a real person and friend of the author – loses her legs to a landmine; in the second she loses her sister Rosa to the scourge of HIV/Aids. Through a close reading and discussion of these short books, this paper proposes to explore the historical background and contemporary contexts in which Sofia’s stories unfold: the contested world of post-independence Africa, the unresolved debate over the use of anti-personnel ordnance in the prosecution of warfare, and the continuing human toll taken by HIV/Aids.