He is the author of 46 books – including the famous detective series Wallander detective – sold over 40 million copies. For thirty years, the Swedish writer Henning Mankell divides his time between his country and Mozambique, where he is artistic director of a theater, books and political commitment marked left. Aged 66, he discovered it a year ago, he was suffering from an incurable lung cancer. During the long months of treatment that followed, he completed his last essay, Kvicksand (“quicksand” in Swedish), released in Sweden in September and which will be published French is scheduled for next October at Editions du Seuil. For Libération he wondered about the meaning of life and our place, infinitely small, in history, its political commitment and the role of culture.
You learn there just a year, you were diagnosed with cancer …
I woke up one day with neck pain. The doctor thought it was a herniated disc, but he wanted to make a radio. It was January 8. In less than an hour, the possible hernia turned into cancer. I had metastases in the neck, precisely on the vertebra breaks at the hanging. The primary tumor was in my left lung. For those who learn they have cancer, it’s a disaster. You immediately realize that the conditions of your life has changed. Nothing is the same. I found myself on quicksand, snapped to the bottom. I could not sleep. After a month, I decided it was not a death sentence, I had to adapt myself to this new normal. Now, several days may pass without my thinking. Sometimes a cold breath caressing my neck. But one does not need to be suffering from cancer to think about the meaning of life. Right now, I’m fine.
The death she scares you?
Today, there is virtually no pain that doctors can only relieve. And if we reach a stage when the disease is advanced and unbearable pain, you can always ask to be asleep, until one goes out quietly. This sometimes concerns me is to stay as long death. That sounds rather painful. Which is silly, of course, since with death, time and space cease to exist. We are no longer aware of anything. But sometimes I think: how to handle being dead for a million years …
You are not thinking
No?. I respect those who are, and I hope they respect me. What is great about life is that it only happens once. We can not say stop, go back and start again. Each life is unique, original. Belief in rebirth would devalue. We spend, I think, a darkness to another. And this is not my problem.
In your latest book, Kvicksand, you reflect the passage of time, that we leave behind. Your literary legacy you he cares?
The fate of human beings is to sink into oblivion. We have lived to 110 billion so far. Most died. How much do you remember? From which do you remember in five hundred years? You can build monumental tombstones, it changes nothing. Books, themselves, continue to live as they are read. I think some of mine survive for several generations. But no more. We must live in the present. I sold 40 million, what can I complain?
What impact can a book or a play on the state of the world?
Few books or artists had an immediate political influence. But without art culture, nothing changes. In a country like Mozambique, during the war of independence [1964-1974, ed], art and culture were the glue which unified the nation. The language was not enough. So we danced. Everywhere, the same dance. Culture is the cavalry that awaits in the woods, and arrived when everything collapses. Art and culture have an enormous significance, but not isolated from the rest. During the war, Mozambique, people went to the theater to laugh. It was an act of resistance. They saw on stage the possibilities of another life.
The theater can it really promising another existence?
When you live in a huge political and economic insecurity, the question identity is very important. And identity, culture and art are intertwined. There are not very long, in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, I spoke with a group of boys who were watching my car. Street children, who constantly lie. And who can blame them? They do not trust adults. I asked them what they dreamed the most. Their answer surprised me. It was not a mother, or a home. But an identity card: a name, a photograph, certifying that they are not interchangeable. Have an identity. This has changed my perception of what culture is.
You write a lot about the children …
For me, they are true artists. When it is small, it has total confidence, not only in reality but also in the fantasy and imagination. A sandwich can become a boat. The child can play all day. Then enters school, and reality takes over. Later, if you want to devote his life to art, we must reclaim what was child.
You are considered a committed writer …
I know of no significant writer in history who has not dreamed of a better world. Any artistic creation comes from a willingness to change. It does not paint a picture without hoping it will influence in one way or another those who watch it. A direct and immediate political commitment is not a necessity. I actually great respect for artists who do not differentiate between the right and the left, but defending humanist values in their work. I distinguish my role as a writer that of intellectual, in which my involvement can go through other forms of writing. Sometimes the two roles coincide. Not always.
As in your presence, three years ago, on one of the boats in the flotilla wanted to break the blockade against Gaza?
This is a typical example. I found very important initiative. My participation made sense. Besides, the Mossad thought so too. When the commandos boarded the ship, one of the soldiers was responsible for ensuring that it does not happen to me, because that would have posed additional problems. I still do not understand the stupidity and arrogance of Israel. It was enough to send divers to strings in boat propellers. We would have been stopped in their tracks.
What solution to the conflict?
Israel reminds me of South Africa under apartheid. The country is working on its own destruction. This will end perhaps a war, or the decision of the United States to stop injecting millions of dollars … Anyway, I do not believe in a two state solution: Israel has ensured that this would be impossible, occupying all jurisdictions where Palestine could have been built. We must build a state where Israelis, Jews and Arabs, will live together. For now, I note especially the same despair that during the last five years of apartheid.
You say socialist. What does that mean?
Socialism, for me, is the firm belief in the principle of solidarity. If you are sitting in your couch watching TV and you hear someone outside yelling for help, you can turn up the volume or going out to see what happens. Socialist parties in Europe are no more. The social-liberal ideology has prevailed. But it is no longer relevant today. We need major social changes, but the left did not propose. In France, for example, Francois Hollande is a real disaster. What what happened to this man? Coming from the left, he was in an ideal position after Nicolas Sarkozy, who led the policy was expected. But scandals are so annoying. With Sarkozy, at least, there was passion.
Across Europe, the far right is progressing. The party Sweden Democrats doubled its score in the last election …
I am not surprised. The other parties refused to act. They remained silent, did not want to engage in discussion. Obviously this party disgusts me. But 80,000 Swedes voted for him, I can not just spit in their faces. The challenge is to explain to them why they are wrong. None of the leaders of other parties it employs. Of course he must refuse to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats. But we must speak with his constituents.
What is the future of literature?
I remember the early 60s when the South American literature arrived and overwhelmed us, altering our conception of what a human being and living conditions. We’re at the same point today: this time the tsunami will come from Africa. If you sit somewhere on the African continent and make no noise, you will hear the clicking of keyboards: everywhere, people are writing their history
Your books translated worldwide. you refer millions …
And this is a problem for me. I’d also earn all that money, rather than an ordinary capitalist, because at least I give half to causes that make sense, after paying my taxes by considerable elsewhere in Sweden. But I sleep well at night.
Drawing Yann Legendre
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