Workshop

Charged

What good is literary prose if it does not get under the skin of its readers?
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On the Banks of the Alpheios

For each year, the water passing underneath the bridge which I tend to cross with a jolt of reverence in my spine seems a little less buoyant, a little more sluggish
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Over and Over Again, and Always As If for the First Time

It is over a decade since the man who called himself »a sort of biologist« died. Strangers like us aren’t able to judge whether his ghost haunts the studio. Still, everything exudes calm, clarity, concentration. In a word: presence of mind
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Alaska

The only thing needed was this will to detach oneself from everything and everyone, no matter at what cost. I associated it with the thirty-first point of the compass, which is to say north by west, and with a name: Alaska
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Rather Be Deaf

Recently I was asked if I could name an appealing utopia in literature. The question made me awkward. In truth, »the Isle of Bliss«, of which the Romantic poet Atterbom spoke, makes me claustrophobic; every fibre of my body wants to flee
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Fuck, Marry, Kill

Is it not high time we killed off fictional characters whose principal purpose is to give the narrating protagonist self-insight and cause to celebrate himself as the best thing since pomade?
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(Four Questions Concerning) Money Matters

One doesn’t need to have read Marx to know that an empty wallet begets an empty stomach
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Strong Scenes

Freud spoke of »primal scenes« in people’s lives, obscure events that define how they act and regard themselves. Writers have these experiences too, of course. They are rarely numerous, and need not be significant to others. But much of the energy in a writing life is drawn from them. They are like a wound that won’t heal
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Menetekel

I kept an eye out for a suitable place where the accident that had to happen could occur – and found it in an underpass about a minute’s drive from the border crossing
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400 Days Later

At last, the new novel is ready to be handed in, after 400 working days spread over two years, minus a week or so
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A Dish Best Served Cold 

A painful sensation, that: hearing one’s own text read out by a voice out of its depth in what is being said
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Regarding Matters Raised

This overrated pronoun . .
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Window on the World

In the room where my desk stands the curtains are drawn. The weave of the fabric is loose enough for the façades opposite to be made out. The sienna red and Stockholm yellow buildings hold little interest for me. But if I raise my gaze above the rooftops, the sky shimmers
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Half Marten, Half Swallow

Longing is a curious beast. I imagine it as half marten, half swallow
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First and Last

In the early 1990s I was invited to dinner at the home of a literature professor in Baltimore. He was rumoured to be the biggest private collector of books on the east coast
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Atlas Shrugged

Today the new book, final finishing touches applied, left my desk for the printer’s – ready, no, released. There are no old printouts to get rid of, zero books to return to the shelves, not even a boiler suit to wash or a letter of condolence to post to myself. All that remains is to manage the emptiness in the most sensible manner
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The Failing of Aphorisms

The failing of aphorisms …
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»Was It Worth It?«

A friend in another country is ill. For nearly thirty years we were close, despite the distance. We went through divorces, each in our own place, supported each other in adversity and celebrated when there was reason – and spent Lord knows how many hours discussing on the phone, often laughing, always committed. Among our friendship’s finest features was discretion. Boundaries were respected. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, friendly taunts were never far away
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Valentine’s Day

Once again it’s time: I submit the manuscript of a new novel. This time, there’s no mixture of exultation and resignation, chutzpah and confusion raging in my breast
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Fever Chronicle (Friday the 13th)

What a curious monster it is, fever. One morning the mercury reaches 39.7°C, the next 40.1°. After a temporary decline to 38.9°, the liquid metal climbs past 40.5° on the fourth morning. The lines on the chart look like dragons’ fiery tongues, each one more barbed than the next. Between them lie long nights of ague and self-pity
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