Perhaps it is the darkness that swallows the Scandinavian sun come November of every year. Perhaps it is the snow, which blankets a landscape as threatening and rugged as it is beautiful. Perhaps it is his own personal tragedy, but whatever the cause, few modern authors can so eloquently, so simply, and so hauntingly write about death in a manner that is both as timeless and as profoundly pertinent to our present circumstance as Per Petterson. In a recent interview conducted by James Campbell of England’s The Guardian, Petterson recounts part of his final conversation with his mother, in which she stated—referring to his recently published novel Ekkoland— “Well, I hope the next one won’t be that childish.” A week later she, along with Petterson’s younger brother and father, were counted among the 159 passengers who lost their lives when the ferry Scandinavian Star caught fire. That was in 1990. Not surprisingly, a pall hangs over much of Petterson’s subsequent work. Happiness is sparse. When it appears, it is bittersweet, and though his world is not hopeless, it’s certainly bleak, as if overseen by a greedy Old Testament god eager to make his wrath known.
more from Adam Gallari at The Quarterly Conversation here.