0:00:01.203,0:00:05.056 When people ask me what is my main inspiration 0:00:05.056,0:00:08.204 I say it is the ancient Greek drama 0:00:08.204,0:00:13.416 if you take a play like Medea that's written 2300 years ago 0:00:13.416,0:00:19.656 it is about a woman who murders her children because of jalousy in relation to her husband 0:00:19.656,0:00:23.954 if that is not a crime story, I don't know what a crime story is 0:00:23.954,0:00:29.121 the only difference is that there is no police officer in it 0:00:29.121,0:00:33.122 because in Greece at that time there was no police force 0:00:33.122,0:00:39.979 but I can assure you if they had had a police force, there would also have a policeman in the play 0:00:39.979,0:00:46.703 but this story uses the mirror of crime to look upon contradictions in society 0:00:46.703,0:00:49.536 that is what interests me. 0:00:49.536,0:00:54.696 Look at McBeth, take McBeth and put Richard Nixon in there: 0:00:54.696,0:00:58.816 you have the same story, in a way. 0:00:58.816,0:01:05.658 And then I can say that, yes, there are also pure crime fictions that inspire me. 0:01:05.658,0:01:07.786 For example Sherlock Holmes. 0:01:07.786,0:01:13.120 Because many histories talk about English society, 0:01:13.120,0:01:17.056 about hypocrisy, about many things 0:01:17.056,0:01:23.258 So, I don't see any differences by writing crime fiction or another novel 0:01:23.258,0:01:32.285 I think, I put up my cheek a little and say that crime fiction is one of the oldest literary genre that exists 0:01:32.285,0:01:38.578 it's not invented by Edgar Alan Poe, it's much older than that. 0:01:38.578,0:01:45.658 All of my ancestors were musicians, they were playing in churches, organ players and 0:01:45.658,0:01:55.579 my grandfather was a composer and I think that when I was young I also thought of myself as a musician 0:01:55.579,0:02:04.953 but I realised quite quickly that (I was playing the violin) I would never be as good as I would want to be 0:02:04.953,0:02:14.856 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 0:02:14.856,0:02:22.287 But on the other hand you might say that music is a very essential part of writing 0:02:22.287,0:02:33.121 as it is in painting, as it is in sculpturing, as it is in any other kind of art making, I would say 0:02:33.121,0:02:38.818 My home was full of music but it was also full of books 0:02:38.818,0:02:44.659 and I think I grew up in what you can call a really, really liberal family because 0:02:44.659,0:02:51.817 first of all no one said anything if you were late at night reading 0:02:51.817,0:02:55.496 and secondly no one asked you what you read 0:02:55.496,0:02:59.738 and that is to me a good definition of what is a liberal family 0:02:59.738,0:03:07.738 I think that the specific thing with my childhood was the fact that there was no mother around 0:03:07.738,0:03:13.579 she had left the family so I grew up with my father and he was very occupied 0:03:13.579,0:03:21.178 but I can still remember at night sometimes I would tell him something about what I had read 0:03:21.178,0:03:29.057 and he was clever enough to take two minutes to listen to all the stupid things that I said 0:03:29.057,0:03:31.537 and about what I read 0:03:31.537,0:03:38.287 and I think it is one of the lessons that I learned: you always have to listen to a child 0:03:38.287,0:03:47.453 I think that the real artist is the child because if you remember back when you were 4, 5 or 6 years old, 0:03:47.453,0:03:56.286 you know, you had an enormous belief in the fact that you could transform a stone into a car, 0:03:56.286,0:03:59.818 or a piece of wood into whatever 0:03:59.818,0:04:03.656 Now, then you start school and you know what happens 0:04:03.656,0:04:07.977 rationality takes over … maybe it is necessary 0:04:07.977,0:04:14.657 but later on when you maybe eventually would like to become an artist, 0:04:14.657,0:04:20.498 then you have to reconquer the thing you had as a child 0:04:20.498,0:04:27.736 I think that it has to do with the sort of connection back to the courage you had as a child 0:04:27.736,0:04:32.058 to ask the really, really difficult questions 0:04:32.058,0:04:39.120 I sometimes ask people when I am out talking: 0:04:39.120,0:04:44.786 who do you think is my greatest idol? or icon? 0:04:44.786,0:04:47.817 and people guess this, and that, and I say 0:04:47.817,0:04:52.258 no, I have photo, a small photo on my wall 0:04:52.258,0:04:57.738 and the greatest idol is myself as a 12 year old 0:04:57.738,0:05:02.285 and when I watch this guy, this boy, this me at 12 years old, 0:05:02.285,0:05:08.120 I think that at time I was at my best. I didn't see any limit to life. 0:05:08.120,0:05:13.098 I believed in imagination, in fantasy, and reality 0:05:13.098,0:05:23.577 I thought every mountain was possible to climb, every desert was possible to get through 0:05:23.577,0:05:30.498 so I look at that boy and I try to imitate him, I try to be as brave and as good as he was. 0:05:30.498,0:05:39.120 The sensation of being able to put one word after another word making a sentence, and then making another sentence, 0:05:39.120,0:05:44.454 and then having a story … this is to me a miracle. 0:05:44.454,0:05:47.286 And this is the understanding of reading 0:05:47.286,0:05:53.576 and then obviously came the next miracle: that you realise that you could do that yourself. 0:05:53.576,0:05:56.578 It was the next miracle. 0:05:56.578,0:06:07.096 I still remember that the first thing I ever wrote was a verse on Robinson Crusoe on one page 0:06:07.096,0:06:10.205 I would give a finger to have that paper left 0:06:10.205,0:06:19.059 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, 0:06:19.059,0:06:25.786 still believe that Robinson Crusoe is the best novel ever written 0:06:25.786,0:06:33.657 for a very simple reason: because Robinson is not alone on the island before Friday comes, 0:06:33.657,0:06:39.619 he is alone on the island with the reader and that's important 0:06:39.619,0:06:44.621 you are on that island, with Robinson, … you help him out 0:06:44.621,0:06:53.036 that is a genius way of telling a story. I could never think of a plot better than that one 0:06:53.036,0:06:58.338 You could take out certain characters in certain books, 0:06:58.338,0:07:03.370 take them out of the books and bring them with you as friends. 0:07:03.370,0:07:07.618 I think one of the most important thing with art is that you get friends there 0:07:07.618,0:07:10.978 you could have a painting somewhere; when you see someone in a painting 0:07:10.978,0:07:15.496 you could take that person out of the painting and make that person a friend 0:07:15.496,0:07:18.336 that follows you in life. 0:07:18.336,0:07:29.787 Art to me is essential to see how the world looks, to understand the world by seeing how other people demonstrate it 0:07:29.787,0:07:35.336 it could be Francis Bacon or Goya or Ken Holtz (?) 0:07:35.336,0:07:38.977 Sometimes I can understand it immediately 0:07:38.977,0:07:41.939 sometimes I don't understand it at all 0:07:41.939,0:07:49.976 and sometimes I don't want to understand it. I just want that feeling to be sucked into my universe and stay there 0:07:49.976,0:07:58.536 I think real art, whether it is a painting or music, or whatever, always gives you a certain surprise 0:07:58.536,0:08:03.936 if there is no surprise, I think it falls down. 0:08:03.936,0:08:10.952 I go down to the Prado museum in Madrid once a year, it is a sort of pilgrimage that I do, 0:08:10.952,0:08:13.177 I spend two days there. 0:08:13.177,0:08:22.120 And you know to walk the rooms full of paintings by Velasquez and then come into Goya, for example, 0:08:22.120,0:08:30.619 well, it is not the same museum; it is not the same … it is like it is two different worlds 0:08:30.619,0:08:35.017 you could say they are both painters but there is something more they are different in, 0:08:35.017,0:08:40.417 they tell me different stories about the human condition 0:08:40.417,0:08:49.737 I think you cannot come closer than that to defining art: a good artist tells you A story of life. 0:08:49.737,0:08:56.017 Another artist tells you another story, a bad artist doesn't tell you anything. 0:08:56.017,0:09:04.418 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 0:09:04.418,0:09:10.204 and I think it is not good because we must be able to say that some art is better than other 0:09:10.204,0:09:18.122 then we can discuss that: what do you mean by that?, I don't agree with you … but we can have the discussion. 0:09:18.122,0:09:23.498 Today I think that critics are very … they lack courage in a way. 0:09:23.498,0:09:35.620 I think that if you look through history, in most art, the important kind of art, whether it is sculpture, books or whatever, 0:09:35.620,0:09:41.058 there is some dimension of a dream, of a better society 0:09:41.058,0:09:49.497 and it's obvious to me and to most people that we are living in a terrible world today 0:09:49.497,0:09:57.286 and the most terrible thing with the world today, it does so many problems, it's completely unnecessary 0:09:57.286,0:10:02.286 let me just give one example: me as a writer 0:10:02.286,0:10:13.203 in year 2012, millions upon millions of children go out in life illiterate, they cannot read, they cannot write 0:10:13.203,0:10:20.869 and this is absolutely unnecessary. We could have eradicated illiteracy a long time ago 0:10:20.869,0:10:25.120 if we really would have wanted to do it. But we don't do it, 0:10:25.120,0:10:34.122 so these people are lost because still reading and writing and the little mathematics are the most important tools you have in life 0:10:34.122,0:10:40.453 and I find this so disgusting, such a shame, that obviously I have to talk about it 0:10:40.453,0:10:45.370 when people ask me can people buy your books, novels, in Mozambique 0:10:45.370,0:10:52.577 I say, "why?". There is only one book important here and that is the ABC book 0:10:52.577,0:10:56.499 whether it is a computer program or a book, I don't care 0:10:56.499,0:11:02.286 but eradicate illiteracy before you talk about something else 0:11:02.286,0:11:10.371 and then we can go on and on, look on the word and most problems that kill people are unnecessary 0:11:10.371,0:11:18.057 and I wouldn't understand how could I use my instrument without in one or another way talk about this 0:11:18.057,0:11:21.871 I could not understand myself 0:11:21.871,0:11:30.120 As a writer I am an intellectual and as an intellectual, my responsibility is to react in a way 0:11:30.120,0:11:32.786 to what I see in society 0:11:32.786,0:11:35.036 that is the role of the intellectual 0:11:35.036,0:11:39.536 at least if you have the idea of being a radical intellectual 0:11:39.536,0:11:48.576 for me it goes back to the Enlightenment times of Diderot and Voltaire 0:11:48.576,0:11:51.818 the role of the intellectual 0:11:51.818,0:11:56.286 and I believe this is right and that is why I act the way I act 0:11:56.286,0:12:03.036 I do write, I do write many various things but I also talk if necessary 0:12:03.036,0:12:11.057 I would say it is my relation to the ideal of the Enlightenment 0:12:11.057,0:12:14.204 and I agree with that, with the fact that you should talk 0:12:14.204,0:12:19.536 I agree we are living in a very strange situation: 0:12:19.536,0:12:23.417 we have never seen such a flow of information 0:12:23.417,0:12:26.536 and never have people known so little 0:12:26.536,0:12:32.338 because everything has been done into fragments 0:12:32.338,0:12:38.954 just look at TV news in Denmark and Sweden, short news, 0:12:38.954,0:12:45.817 the worst case if obviously the US where you don't understand anything of the news 0:12:45.817,0:12:55.037 so that is obviously a risk and I agree also that words are misused very much today 0:12:55.037,0:12:59.203 very much today 0:12:59.203,0:13:08.418 but I think that the word that you and I use will always be the most important in communications 0:13:08.418,0:13:18.120 so I think there will always be a way of cleaning up the mess 0:13:18.120,0:13:28.016 but what is very difficult for me today is when I read these twitter and blogs 0:13:28.016,0:13:35.058 and it's a way of saying that simplifying things is the best thing 0:13:35.058,0:13:41.287 and I say, no, complicate things … because the truth is always complicated in a way 0:13:41.287,0:13:46.577 so I agree that something is happening with language but I'm not afraid that we will lose it 0:13:46.577,0:13:50.787 because if we lose it, we lose our humanity 0:13:50.787,0:13:52.620 no, we won't do that 0:13:52.620,0:14:02.285 I think there is also a need, among many readers to get long stories 0:14:02.285,0:14:06.338 they are so fed up with these short fragments 0:14:06.338,0:14:11.258 so, they want a long story. They want, in a way, Dickens 0:14:11.258,0:14:17.577 which I also do myself: if I find a good novel which is 400 pages, I'm happy 0:14:17.577,0:14:22.418 if it is bad, it doesn't matter if it is 100 or 400 pages 0:14:22.418,0:14:28.878 so, I'm not afraid even of the epic story will survive 0:14:28.878,0:14:33.657 I know of course that I'll never be able to do everything I want 0:14:33.657,0:14:40.936 death will always come to disturb you, you never know when it comes 0:14:40.936,0:14:49.996 and in some very few moments I can feel a sort of desperation, even a sort of depression about that fright 0:14:49.996,0:15:01.763 but that is life. If you listen for example to the string quartets that Beethoven wrote when he was old, 0:15:01.763,0:15:06.458 they are presenting you with something completely new in his music 0:15:06.458,0:15:14.379 it is like he had ..., when he started to become old, he didn't give a shit about anything 0:15:14.379,0:15:22.346 he had nothing to lose so he started to write some very, very new music that the world had never heard before 0:15:22.346,0:15:26.057 that is his latest string quartets 0:15:26.057,0:15:34.539 so, it might be that things happen when you get older that give you a sort of new freedom, 0:15:34.539,0:15:38.457 you don't know that so, this is what I hope for 0:15:38.457,0:15:48.514 to me, obviously, life has meaning when I can sit down and try to formulate something 0:15:48.514,0:15:54.766 because whatever you do, is trying, you're trying … you never know when you're gonna succeed or not, 0:15:54.955,0:15:57.649 but you are trying to do something 0:15:57.649,0:16:05.121 that is the closest I can come to a meaning of life in the creativity 0:16:05.121,0:16:11.405 I don't think I have a more intelligent answer than that.