When people ask me what is my main inspiration
I say it is the ancient Greek drama
if you take a play like Medea that's written 2300 years ago
it is about a woman who murders her children because of jalousy in relation to her husband
if that is not a crime story, I don't know what a crime story is
the only difference is that there is no police officer in it
because in Greece at that time there was no police force
but I can assure you if they had had a police force, there would also have a policeman in the play
but this story uses the mirror of crime to look upon contradictions in society
that is what interests me.
Look at McBeth, take McBeth and put Richard Nixon in there:
you have the same story, in a way.
And then I can say that, yes, there are also pure crime fictions that inspire me.
For example Sherlock Holmes.
Because many histories talk about English society,
about hypocrisy, about many things
So, I don't see any differences by writing crime fiction or another novel
I think, I put up my cheek a little and say that crime fiction is one of the oldest literary genre that exists
it's not invented by Edgar Alan Poe, it's much older than that.
All of my ancestors were musicians, they were playing in churches, organ players and
my grandfather was a composer and I think that when I was young I also thought of myself as a musician
but I realised quite quickly that (I was playing the violin) I would never be as good as I would want to be
so I, in a way, chose another instrument because you have to understand that writing is a sort of instrument you have in your hands
But on the other hand you might say that music is a very essential part of writing
as it is in painting, as it is in sculpturing, as it is in any other kind of art making, I would say
My home was full of music but it was also full of books
and I think I grew up in what you can call a really, really liberal family because
first of all no one said anything if you were late at night reading
and secondly no one asked you what you read
and that is to me a good definition of what is a liberal family
I think that the specific thing with my childhood was the fact that there was no mother around
she had left the family so I grew up with my father and he was very occupied
but I can still remember at night sometimes I would tell him something about what I had read
and he was clever enough to take two minutes to listen to all the stupid things that I said
and about what I read
and I think it is one of the lessons that I learned: you always have to listen to a child
I think that the real artist is the child because if you remember back when you were 4, 5 or 6 years old,
you know, you had an enormous belief in the fact that you could transform a stone into a car,
or a piece of wood into whatever
Now, then you start school and you know what happens
rationality takes over … maybe it is necessary
but later on when you maybe eventually would like to become an artist,
then you have to recounter the thing you had as a child
I think that it has to do with the sort of connection back to the courage you had as a child
to ask the really, really difficult questions
I sometimes ask people when I am out talking:
who do you think is my greatest idol? or icon?
and people guess this, and that, and I say
no, I have photo, a small photo on my wall
and the greatest idol is myself as a 12 year old
and when I watch these guy, this boy, this me at 12 years old,
I think that at time I was at my best. I did not see any limit to life.
I believed in imagination, in fantasy, and reality
I thought every mountain was possible to climb, every desert was possible to get through
so I look at that boy and I try to imitate him, I try to be as brave and as good as he was.
The sensation of being able to put one word after another word making a sentence, and then making another sentence,
then having a story … this is to me a miracle.
And this is the understanding of reading
and then obviously came the next miracle: that you realise that you could do that yourself.
It was the next miracle.
I still remember that the first thing I ever wrote was a verse on Robinson Crusoe on one page
I would give a finger to have that paper left
but I don't have it, it's gone of course … I probably was 6 years old when I wrote it and I, by the way,
still believe that Robinson Crusoe is the best novel ever written
for a very simple reason: because Robinson is not alone on the island before Friday comes,
he is alone on the island with the reader and that's important
you are on that island, with Robinson