She borned in Sweden at 1978 and she is communication specialist and writer. She made her debut in 2018 with his book “We hope for the best”, the Hungarian translation is thanks to Judit Hollander, and it was published in 2019 courtesy of Park Publishing. The book honestly confronts grief; with the mourning when a wife is left alone with her tiny child because her husband dies overnight. How can we process the loss of a love person while our own child needs us? For our 100% self. We also talked about this, among other things, as we touched on social issues: for example, how she herself sees her position in Sweden, in literature, as a female writer. I made an interview with Carolina Setterwall.Carolina with her sonFirst of all ... you live with your little boy in Stockholm. We have been told in the news that Sweden has taken Covid-19 quite loosely. How was perceptible the epidemic, the quarantine in reality?My perspective is that there is somewhat of a misunderstanding of how Sweden has tackled the virus. We’re definitely not leading the same lives as we were before the pandemic here. Nothing feels “loosely”, even though it may seem that way compared to those countries that are in strict lockdowns. The difference, I would say, is Sweden’s trust-based strategy that leaves a lot of compliance in the hands of the individual (for better or worse). Shops and restaurants have indeed remained open, but with strict limitations in terms of distance between people and how many people allowed in the same space. Those who have failed to solve these issues have been closed by the government. We’re not allowed to see our elderly in their elderly homes, we’re keeping a distance when, and if, we’re meeting our friends (almost always outdoors), but our schools (at least elementary and preschool) have indeed remained open. The capital of Sweden, Stockholm, was hit hard by the virus in early March because it exploded in parts of Europe during the same week as the Stockholmers had their “sportlov”, which is a one-week break from schools when many people go abroad. Thousands and thousands of people came back to Sweden from countries like Italy, Austria, Germany, UK, etc., during a very vulnerable time when all we really knew was to look out for signs of illness if having been to northern Italy. A few weeks later, it was widespread in Stockholm. And since then we’ve been struggling with trying to take measures in order not to overwhelm the health care system. In my specific case, as a mother to a 6-year-old son and stepmother of an 8 years old, this spring has been… weird. We’ve stayed inside a lot. We haven’t met people, like we normally do. Or been anywhere outside of our own part of the city, really. My kids have gone to school and preschool, but that is it. Myself, being a writer, I worked from home even before the outbreak, so my working days have remained almost the same as they were before.You wrote that your friend is also a writer. How can you solve creativity and parenting? Or is one of you a night owl while the other can write in the morning?We’re both authors but we’re very different as persons. He’s passionate, both as a person and about his writing and during certain periods of times, he rarely sleeps. I could wake up at 4 AM and he’s already up, writing and drinking coffee in the kitchen. Me, myself, I am more of a 9 to 5 kind of author. When the kids are in school, I write. When they’re at home, I don’t. It’s not an arrangement between the two of us rather than it is a result of our different personalities. I can’t write when the kids are playing in the room next to mine. Neither can I write when there are sounds around me, such as music or disturbing construction work. I need peace and quiet and to be completely alone, at least in the room. We’ve go quite a spacious flat in Stockholm, luckily, so most days we make it work. I use one room and he uses another.If the family has already talked… What family did you grow up in? Was literature important, or what was the main thing your parents teached about life for you?I grew up in a family in the suburbs of Stockholm. When I was 9 years old, my parents divorced and my brother and I lived with my father, who later on met a new woman whom he married. When I was 12, our family moved to a horse farm outside of a small town in Sweden called Sala, so in a sense, I was a true “small town girl” who spent my free time in the stable, riding horses and doing farm work. My parents weren’t big readers although we had thousands of books in our home, oddly enough.I’m quite happy I grew up pre-internet, because all I could really do when I was bored was to read. I read a lot when I was young. These days it seems the kids are far more obsessed with their iPads than reading books, which is a bit sad to think of.We live in the world of iPads now, yes. So how would you persuade today's young people to read more? And for example are there three books that you would definitely like that your children to read?I dwell on that subject regularly since I have two kids that often choses to spend time with their iPad rather than with books. But, I think the main thing is to make them as interested in STORIES as we were when we were children. A story could be so much today – a novel, a movie, an audiobook, a fairytale told by a friend or a parent, even a game. If they are fascinated and engulfed in the world of stories, hopefully they will also be open to the magical world of books.I don’t have three books that I want them to read, I’m happy with them reading whatever makes them feel the way I did when I was a kid.Do you remember what was the first book which you read?Actually, I don’t! I read lots of Astrid Lindgren-stories (such as Pippi Longstocking) and when I got a little bit older, all the books by Enid Blyton.photo: Carolina SetterwallYou studied Media and Communication in Uppsala, Stockholm but after you began work in London as editor and writer. How did you get there at all and how was it different from Stockholm?Quite early on, I discovered I had at least somewhat of a talent within writing. Through written words I could formulate almost anything – much more than I could do when speaking, for example. I did pretty well at school and soon started figuring out in which ways I could possibly earn my living as a writer. I didn’t want to become a journalist, at least not in the beginning, because I was very shy and the mere thought of having to ask people difficult and sometimes uncomfortable questions, would make me very uncomfortable too. That was the reason, I think, I ended up within media and communication industry. At different marketing and communication departments, I figured, I would get to write and make money out of it. The thought of becoming an author never really occurred to me back then. Those thoughts came later, decades later actually. The reason I went to London was simply because that’s what many people in Sweden did after graduating from high school in the nineties. It was a very popular destination for young people, to go working at restaurants and bars and studying English, so that is what I did there. It wasn’t until after London I started studying media and communications studies in Swedish universities, and not until after those years that I actually started working within the field. In London I just kind of partied and practiced my language skills.Did you write to yourself at the desk drawer during your years in England, or was it really completely out of your life at the time?During my year in London, I hadn’t yet figured out what I wanted to do with my life. That being said, I always kept a journal and wrote on a daily basis in my personal diary, also I wrote TONS of letters, but that was it. I was 19 and my father had just died back home in Sweden, I think during that year I was trying to get to know myself as a grown up person. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I started experimenting with the thought of becoming a writer, in one way or the other.What is characteristic of your writing style if you had to describe it in one word?Simplicity… maybe?You wrote a blog post on February 13, 2020. There you wrote that writing is hard for you. Who’s or what’s expectations do you want to meet in the first place?Since Let’s Hope For The Best was released in Sweden in 2018 and many other countries in 2019 and 2020, I’ve been working on two parallel projects that both revolve around themes of motherhood and daughterhood, if you will. The reason I’m struggling, I think, is because I’m simply not very experienced as an author of neither fiction, nor novels.I want to meet my own expectations, and these are very high. I’m not letting anything leave my computer unless I’m really, really pleased with the result. And sometimes, during some periods in this process, I tend to become very hard on myself. There are so many fantastic authors and amazing stories out there. I don’t want to add mine, if they aren’t as fantastic themselves. Which makes me paralysed sometimes, I must confess.When you started writing your book, (“Let’s hope for the Best”), then what was your purpose with what was described? Or did you simply use writing as a therapy?It definitely worked as therapy, because that’s what writing does to me. I tend to understand myself better when writing, things I don’t understand about myself become much clearer when put them into a text rather than keeping them inside my own head. That was also the case with this story, although it wasn’t the reason I decided to turn it into a novel to be read by thousands of others. I wanted Let’s Hope For The Best to become the story I would have like to have read myself, going through those first years of grief and anger and all these feelings of alienation against the rest of the world. I wanted it to add something to the bereavement literature I had consumed myself, and I actually think it did.photo: Carolina SetterwallTherapy… When the therapist in the book sends the protagonist after a few sessions by not being able to help someone who isn’t ready for processing yet, how much was it about you?That was one hundred percent about me. And she was right. I wasn’t ready to take it all in when I visited that therapist, I was in a rush to do everything right and to fast forward through the hell I was living through. And that, unfortunately, can’t be done. One side of me still thinks it was her job to “deal with me” even so, the other thinks she had a fair point in claiming it’s impossible to help somebody who isn’t ready to face the full depth of her grief. Luckily, and this part is not included in the novel, I also saw another therapist during this time. I guess you can say I was two-timing them both, which isn’t something I would recommend generally but in this case it was good, because I still had a professional to talk to when I was feeling at my very worst.What do you think, such a trauma that a toddler loses one of his parents early that will affect his character? And how does your little son live the whole situation: he is asking about his's father yet?We are talking about his dad almost every day. At least several times a week. He asks questions and I try to answer them all honestly. What was my father like? What did he think about me when I was born? What kind of disease did he have? Etcetera.I think it is very important to let children be involved, both in the grief and in the missing a dear person, so that it doesn’t become a taboo.So in retrospect, would there be something you would have written differently in the book, (“Let’s hope for the Best”)?I would have made it shorter! I think Carolina in the book repeats herself too much. Sure, that’s what grieving people tend to do, but still I think the story is a bit too long and that my point would probably have come through even if I had cut some of the scenes.And how are you right now? Are you planning a new book?Well, I’m still a person dealing with a trauma because those don’t go away just because a few years pass, but I’m ok. I’m living together with my boyfriend who is also an author and we have our two kids. We’re trying to enjoy our life and to always stay thankful for what we have got.I’m currently working on those two novels I mentioned earlier, about motherhood and daughterhood. The reason there are two stories is because I couldn’t make my mind up between them. They both speak to me. And when I grow tired of one of them I simply switch to the other. I think I’m one of those authors who need to have parallel projects. I’m also experimenting co-writing a crime story with another person, who is not an author but who has a brilliant mind. We’ll see where that ends up.One of the motherhood stories will be published in Sweden next year, I think, and hopefully it will also be translated into a few other languages.Motherhood and girlhood. Two stories too. Sounds pretty exciting. One of story will be published in Sweden next year, will you tell us a little more about it, or is it a secret yet?It’s not a secret but it isn’t done yet, so it’s hard to say exactly what it will become. I think I am very fascinated with the subject of motherhood and daughterhood – how it changes a woman to become somebody’s mother and how it also sometimes changes her possibilities of self-fulfillment. Also, I am fascinated with how traumas tend to spread across generations in families, and maybe especially between mothers and daughters?Which of your writings you have written so far is closest to your heart?Since Let’s Hope For The Best is my debut, there aren’t many to choose between. Even so, I would be surprised if this story didn’t stay closest to my heart in the future too because it has so much to do with my own life. Losing my husband and raising my son alone is a huge part of who I am, as a person, today. The story told in Let’s Hope For The Best is more or less the story of my life, the story of my biggest love, (my son), and the story of my biggest trauma. I have a feeling this story is going to stick around.Swedish writers are accountable to the world for crime writers, but especially for those who write on a depressive topic. Why do you think this is? Are emotions really that much closer to you and you dared to write much more without taboos than, say, writers from other European countries?Ha, ha! I didn’t know Swedes were famous for writing on depressive topics, are we really? If so, I think it might have to do with the Swedish culture. We live in a country that is literally dark 6 months every year. Maybe that makes us a tad more depressed than your average European? We’re not raised in a society where it’s ok to brag too much about our own achievements. We don’t like to pretend we’re better than we actually are. If there’s anywhere we can go under these circumstances, I guess it’s at least being honest about our weaknesses as human beings? That being said, I truly don’t know. I’m very attached to Swedish and Scandinavian writers and the fact that the stories often feel very realistic and true, to me.“I guess it’s at least being honest about our weaknesses as human beings.” What is your biggest weakness that you see?I’ve got tons of weaknesses as a person (who doesn’t?) and I don’t know where to start if I would try to categorize them.One of my biggest weaknesses is probably the fact that I tend to think emotional intimacy is very frightening and therefor I tend to lock myself and my feelings inside me, rather than sharing and communication with the people I have closest.Also I’m very proud as a person and have a hard time saying “please forgive me, I was wrong”. And… I hold grudges! The list could go on and on…photo: Carolina SetterwallOther subject… You must have heard that the Istanbul Convention was not adopted here in Hungary. What did you think about this, and why do you think it is important to be accepted?Let me put it this way. I think it’s important for every country to take responsibility for the well-being and equality of all their citizens, female and male, and since domestic violence and violence against women are huge problems in very many societies, I have a hard time understanding the reasons for not wanting to accept a convention like that.Yes, we agree on that. And another very important issue: The role of female writers in literature: In Sweden, feminism is a little different than, say, in other countries. How do you see your place in literature as a female writer?I’m not sure feminism in Sweden is so different from feminism in other countries, actually. In some areas we’ve come a long way, in others not so much. My place, as I see it, in literature as a female writer is to tell stories of female life. To make these stories, lives, seen and heard. Together with a lot of other authors in Sweden, I’m documenting what it’s like to live as a woman, a mother, a daughter, a citizen, in Sweden and Scandinavia during this period of time in our collective history.What is Sweden's view of the US BLM ("Black Lives Matter") case? And where do you think your country and the world stand on this issue?I would never attempt to even try to speak for “Sweden’s view” of the US BLM Case, but it has definitely raised the question to top of people’s mind here too. Just like in other parts of the world, we’re demonstrating and campaigning and signing petitions in aim to raise the question and to make change.the last question is a small chill: What is the contemporary book you are currently reading and you think everyone should read it?I think Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women is an amazing book because it tells an authentic tale about womanhood today. Throughout the story, Lisa Taddeo and the three women she’s been talking too, manages to explore areas of female longing, sexuality, attempts to find love and become loved in a way that makes you read the story as a thriller rather than a non-fiction documentary.(hungaria's translate: https://ift.tt/2IclkC9 ) via /r/u_maja_varga https://ift.tt/33J8HXG
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