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 reconquer 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 this guy, this boy, this me at 12 years old,
I think that at time I was at my best. I didn't 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,
and 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, … you help him out
that is a genius way of telling a story. I could never think of a plot better than that one
You could take out certain characters in certain books,
take them out of the books and bring them with you as friends.
I think one of the most important thing with art is that you get friends there
you could have a painting somewhere; when you see someone in a painting
you could take that person out of the painting and make that person a friend
that follows you in life.
Art to me is essential to see how the world looks, to understand the world by seeing how other people demonstrate it
it could be Francis Bacon or Goya or Ken Holtz (?)
Sometimes I can understand it immediately
sometimes I don't understand it at all
and sometimes I don't want to understand it. I just want that feeling to be sucked into my universe and stay there
I think real art, whether it is a painting or music, or whatever, always gives you a certain surprise
if there is no surprise, I think it falls down.
I go down to the Prado museum in Madrid once a year, it is a sort of pilgrimage that I do,
I spend two days there.
And you know to walk the rooms full of paintings by Velasquez and then come into Goya, for example,
well, it is not the same museum; it is not the same … it is like it is two different worlds
you could say they are both painters but there is something more they are different in,
they tell me different stories about the human condition
I think you cannot come closer than that to defining art: a good artist tells you A story of life.
Another artist tells you another story, a bad artist doesn't tell you anything.
I'm not afraid of talking about good art and bad art. I think we are living in a time when people are afraid of talking about that
and I think it is not good because we must be able to say that some art is better than other
then we can discuss that: what do you mean by that?, I don't agree with you … but we can have the discussion.
Today I think that critics are very … they lack courage in a way.
I think that if you look through history, in most art, the important kind of art, whether it is sculpture, books or whatever,
there is some dimension of a dream, of a better society
and it's obvious to me and to most people that we are living in a terrible world today
and the most terrible thing with the world today, it does so many problems, it's completely unnecessary
let me just give one example: me as a writer
in year 2012, millions upon millions of children go out in life illiterate, they cannot read, they cannot write
and this is absolutely unnecessary. We could have eradicated illiteracy a long time ago
if we really would have wanted to do it. But we don't do it,
so these people are lost because still reading and writing and the little mathematics are the most important tools you have in life
and I find this so disgusting, such a shame, that obviously I have to talk about it
when people ask me can people buy your books, novels, in Mozambique
I say, "why?". There is only one book important here and that is the ABC book
whether it is a computer program or a book, I don't care
but eradicate illiteracy before you talk about something else
and then we can go on and on, look on the word and most problems that kill people are unnecessary
and I wouldn't understand how could I use my instrument without in one or another way talk about this
I could not understand myself
As a writer I am an intellectual and as an intellectual, my responsibility is to react in a way
to what I see in society
that is the role of the intellectual
at least if you have the idea of being a radical intellectual
for me it goes back to the enlightenment time of Diderot and Montaigne
the role of the intellectual
and I believe this is right and that is why I act the way I act
I do write, I do write many various things but I also talk if necessary
I would say it is my relation to the ideal of the enlightenment
and I agree with that, with the fact that you should talk