Jean-Claude Mourlevat – laureate 2021 1
Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Why do you write?
– Because I’m a terrible singer! Writing comforts me. Because it’s what I do best. Because I love making up and telling stories. Because I see my books as gifts I want to give to the people I love. Because it’s my way of ordering the world, giving it meaning. How did you develop your powers of imagination? – As a child, I didn’t read all that much, but my siblings and I would tell each other stories. Especially my younger brother and me. We shared a room, and every night we took turns making up stories for each other. I remember that 8 they were unrealistic stories. We made up crazy characters and revisited them over and over until the idea was completely ‘exhausted’. That was a great learning experience for me. I developed my creativity, my imagination, my ability to shape a narrative. Maybe that’s how I became an author. How do you choose your subjects? It’s a mystery. Why do we pick up one particular stone from a beach full of stones? Writing a novel is a sustained effort: one word after another, one idea after another. I also get ideas from things that happened to me when I was young that I still feel shape my life today.