… is having no future.”

Carl-Göran Ekerwald

This quotation, translated from the Swedish, is from an article in Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish daily newspaper. Journalist Christian Dyresjö interviewed writer Carl-Göran Ekerwald upon his having published The Advantage of Getting Old, the most recent of many volumes of writing in the 100 years of Ekerwald’s life.

Dyresö elicited many observations about life and death from Ekerwald, some of which I show here (the full article, in Swedish, can be read under this link: https://www.dn.se/kultur/carl-goran-ekerwald-fordelen-med-att-bli-gammal-ar-att-inte-ha-nagon-framtid/ ).

“I am prepared to quit at any time. Now that we’re here talking would be perfectly fine. When the thunder passes, I sit out here and hold my chest up to the sky and say ‘Here, come lightning’…”

Ekerwald lives in a village near Knivsta, between Stockholm, and Uppsala to the north. His home “is a red one-story cottage with white knots and a balcony. In the house next door, one of the grandchildren has moved in with his family. Two of the great-grandchildren often play in the shared garden, which Ekerwald overlooks from the balcony. On the other side of the road lives his daughter.”

Some excerpts, quotations, from the article:

• The advantage of getting old is that every day is a treasure. Without obligations, without coercion. A life in complete freedom.
• (I have a writer friend who) believes that all Swedes who died would be reborn in India, “to learn how to know”. When the day comes, we can meet him in the non-being. I don’t know, I’m not worried, I’ll allow myself to be amazed and see what happens.
• Some die when they sit and shit so it’s dangerous if you exert yourself too violently. But it will come as it will. I accept it. It will be a liberation.

Since the publication of his first work in 1959, Elden och Fågelungen, Ekerwald has published one book per year, on average: novels about small-town life, poems about love and relationships, biographies of Goethe, Nietzsche and Shakespeare, as well as a number of articles and translations. He counts as one of his greatest achievements his introductions in the “Persian Anthology”, a collection of Eric Hermelin’s translations of Persian poetry (1976).

Ekerwald says that God does not exist. “If God existed, we would have killed him long ago–man is like that” Yet, he says that the Bible is one his favorite books, along with the Koran (Quran). He quotes Augustinus, thus: “He who does not know God knows him best,” and names the medieval Persian poet Rumi as his “spiritual food.”

His advice to aspiring writers: “Don’t try too hard or plan too much. If you set goals, there is a big risk you will not be satisfied when you reach them. Avoid vain pursuit.

Ekerwald was married to Anna Westerberg for 69 years. In her last ten years Anna was affected by ‘Alzheimer’s.’ Ekerwald thinks is inappropriate to call dementia a ‘disease’. “It’s a completely natural human condition, like a flower that withers. The withered state is also a state. We should have a greater understanding that we have different forms of life. Being ‘normal’ is a way of life; getting old is another way of life, not a disease. You can be healthy even if demented.”

“Life itself is a contradiction… all that is going on is remarkable, instructive, difficult to understand. You can’t see any intention or meaning… we must consider ourselves as plants, as animals, and that’s all.”

In his latest book, mentioned at the top, Ekerwald tells us what the life of a future 100-year-old looks like. “I’m ready to quit at any time. When we sit here and talk would be perfectly fine.”

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Permissions were obtained from the Culture Editor of Dagens Nyheter and from journalist Christian Dyresjö, the interviewer. Photo by Thomas Karlson (edited)