Learning about winning the 2018 Nobel Prize
My husband and I were driving fast on the highway between Potsdam and Bielefeld. I don’t even know where it was, it was some nameless place out there, nowhere. We’d been making lots of calls along the way, dealing with various matters.
All of a sudden, at about a quarter to 1, my phone rang and I saw a number starting with 46. I quickly realised that it was the area code for Sweden. I remember thinking: “Who could call me from Sweden at this hour?” Somehow, I felt this strange pressure, I couldn’t quite name it, but I suspected what it might be. I picked up the phone, and then I heard a soft, masculine voice on the other side – he seemed to be a little worried – who told me that he has a message for me: “You won the 2018 Nobel Prize.”
I remember myself saying “No, no…” to which he answered “Yes, indeed.” We had to pull over to a car park. Shocked, we jumped around and hugged, and then, after we calmed down a bit, we went to our destination – to an author meeting.
Meeting Wisława Szymborska
Once upon a time I met my friend in a café in Krakow. We sat at the table, and then I saw the barely disguised commotion.
Wisława Szymborska was sitting in the corner and talking to somebody, but we all pretended that we didn’t see her to make her comfortable and not to disturb her. When I already ordered my coffee, suddenly someone approached me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and I was quite surprised to see Wisława Szymborska, who said: “Ms Tokarczuk, my name is Wisława Szymborska, I don’t want to disturb you, I just wanted to say that I love your Primeval.” My face went red and I could see out of the corner of my eye that the whole cafe went silent. But that’s what Wisława Szymborska was like – incredibly humble, lovely, good, and she always took interest in other people. I really hope that despite this amazing award that I won – I’m kind of afraid to say it loud – I will be able to keep both my feet firmly on the ground.
Upbringing
I never thought I could win an award like this, but when my father raised me, he used to put Marie Skłodowska-Curie as an example for me in order to encourage me to cross the barriers, move past the obstacles and limits resulting from me being a girl, and push forward. Today, Marie Skłodowska-Curie is a role model for many girls who think ahead and break the mould. Back in the day, I didn’t know I would become a writer. I thought that I would go on to become a doctor with space missions that would colonise Mars and other planets, maybe a nuclear physicist – but then it turned out I was bad at maths.
My father saw me going far in my future and encouraged me to do things that were not obvious to others. Recently, my mum said that he would be very happy to hear about the prize. When I was 15–16, and I wrote my first lame attempts at prose, he was the one who typed them for me. I dictated the text, he made terrible faces, but he bravely pressed the keys.
Writing books
I decided to communicate with people using a way that is extremely deep, complex and sophisticated. A way that enables me to get not only to their ears and mind, but also to their hearts, intuitions and feelings – and in this sense, literature is probably more powerful than simply stating the truths.
Literature
Literature opens various doors, erases cultural differences and in fact connects the world. It enables people to experience the same, regardless of their cultural background or language. I have nothing but gratitude for the translators, who help with transposing the concepts from one language to another, but in reality, literature is boundless, it knows no borders.
Readers and reading
I don’t like dividing literature into genres – romance, crime stories and so on – because they transform literature as an experience into literature as a commodity, and reading becomes consumption. I always found it important to allow my reader to sit down with my book in their armchair, but I am perfectly well aware of the fact that the message I want to get across is not always easy to convey using simple situations and characters.
New book
I’m already quite far into it and I think it will be a surprise to everybody. It will be interesting, but at the level on which I used to communicate with my readers. Metaphors and the literary context, to which I am going to refer. Release date… I think somewhere next year.
I’m only afraid that after the Nobel Prize, people will suddenly have enormous expectations towards my writing, or they will want me to try and fix the world.