Early on in the conversation, Dua Lipa said that she had been prompted to read Olga Tokarczuk's novel by its intriguing title. ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead,’ the singer recalled. ‘I immediately thought: what could this be about?
'I had a serious problem with this title,' Olga Tokarczuk replied, 'because my publisher said it was unsellable.’
What is Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead about?
The novel tells the story of murders committed against hunters in the Kłodzko Valley. The main character here is Janina Duszejko, a retired teacher translating William Blake's poetry. The woman, who also dabbles in astrology, claims that hunters are killed by hunted animals that take revenge on them.
The novel was translated into English by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2018. It also became the plot of the film Spoor [Pokot].
Animal rights in a conversation between Dua Lipa and Olga Tokarczuk
The conversation between the two ladies quite quickly shifted to the topic of animal cruelty, which is the actual clue of the Nobel Prize winner's novel. ‘I had an idea, I had a story, I had Duszejko, but I still did not know how to find a language with which to talk about the difficult issues we face as humans,’ explained Olga Tokarczuk.
Olga Tokarczuk in an interview with Dua Lipa: ‘The issue of killing animals. I could write a dark novel full of cruel scenes, which would be a sort of emotional blackmail. And that is something I do not like in literature. I could also create a didactic novel, but I did not want that either. Formally, then, it is a detective novel.’
‘Statistics show that meat consumption increases, for example, in China and India, and this makes our situation worse. Sometimes I become pessimistic,’ confessed Olga Tokarczuk. ‘I believe that the only proper way to talk about this problem is to change the way we think.’
Dua Lipa: ‘I loved Janina and her uncompromising views’
‘Janina is special,’ stated Dua Lipa. ‘I have never encountered such a character before – eccentric and stubborn in her beliefs.
The writer herself admitted that the novel had evoked great emotion in her. ‘As soon as I finished writing this book, I cried.’