Your books are not just crime stories, but crime is a prism through which we see the world. Why are we so drawn to see the world that way?
We who live today are not that different from people a couple of thousand years ago. Go way back to ancient Greek drama. What did they write about? Take Medea. It’s a play about a woman who murders her two children because of jealousy. If that is not a crime story, I don’t know what it is. The difference is, Greek society had nothing called the police; they sorted things out in other ways. But if there had been police, I am certain there would have been police in the play. So the Greeks realized early on that to use the mirror of crime to look at contradictions within a society, between exterior man and interior man, between dream and reality, is one of the most efficient ways of telling a story.
The Man from Beijing is a crime novel that morphs into a family epic, set in different countries at different times. But for you, it had a very specific genesis in Mozambique…
It was seven or eight years ago. Mozambique is a desperately poor country and when the Chinese offered to construct a new ministry of foreign affairs there, they said thank you. So the Chinese started to construct this huge building. Suddenly, there were rumours that the Chinese foremen were treating the African workers badly, even beating them. When I heard that, I thought: This I must write about, because if there is a risk of the Chinese having a sort of colonial attitude towards Africa, then we must react.
What can fiction can tell us that the news can’t?
In fiction, by definition, I write what could have happened or what can happen, not necessarily has happened. That makes it one of the strongest tools we have to talk about things that maybe the news media cannot so easily talk about. Fiction is a very important instrument to tell us about our world. If it wasn’t, why the hell why should I write it?
On your website you say you have one foot in the sand and one in the snow. I think of that as being part of the time in Mozambique and part in Sweden, but in a way are you in both places at once?
In a way. The wonderful thing is the combination. If I go way back, I was 20 years old and had managed to buy a cheap ticket to Africa. I did it as a young author. to have a perspective on the world from outside of European egocentricity. That is 40 years ago now, and I would say that what brings me back to Africa in the beginning of April is basically the same reason, that I think I know more about the human condition in our times from having these two perspectives. And I can also turn it around a little and say that the African experience has made me a better European because I can also see from a distance what works well in Europe. The strength of the political system, for example, even though it is still very fragile. By living with one foot in the sand and one in the snow, I get to know the world better.
It doesn’t make you angry?
Very. But it not only makes me angry, it makes me ashamed that we’re sitting here talking about books when there are millions of children who would never see any reason to hold a book in their hands because they can’t read or write. How on earth in the year 2010 can we let that happen?
There’s a question raised by the image in the book of an African woman carrying a load of cement on her head -- will we ease her burden, or increase it?
