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