In one conversation, you said that you don’t believe writers who claim that stories find them by themselves, but with the novel Apeirogon, which tells through interwoven fragments the true story of Israeli Rami Elhanan and Palestinian Basam Aramine, connected by the loss of their daughter and a joint effort for peace, the story actually found you. how are you
so found?
At first I knew almost nothing about Israel and Palestine. I was interested in the topic, but it seemed like something I couldn’t tackle as a writer – too big, too complicated and too difficult. Then I went there with my non-profit organization Narrative 4, which works on storytelling among young people. In 2015, I wanted to check whether such an approach was even possible in this area. During my stay there, I started getting to know people, their stories, their everyday lives. When I got back to New York, I thought I’d like to write something about it. But all attempts failed, I made up stories, put fictional characters in the space, even Irish protagonists, but nothing worked. It was artificial, empty.
The turning point came when a friend asked me what I really wanted to write about. That was the first time I made it clear that I would like to write about the two people I met there – Rami and Basam. But at the same time, I had the feeling that I shouldn’t: I’m not from this place, I don’t belong to any of these communities. As I pondered and discussed with my colleagues, a friend told me something very simple: if this is the story you want to tell, just tell it.
So I called Rami and Basam and asked for their permission. I made it clear to them that I was a novelist and that writing also meant inventing. Their answer was crucial: if I can capture even a small part of their pain, that will be enough. It was then that I understood that it was no longer a question of whether I chose the story. The story was already there, in their lives, in what I saw and experienced, and it really caught up with me. That’s why I say she found me. Not because I believed in some kind of mysticism, but because only later did I realize that I had been part of this story all along.
In a way, you got their blessing.
Yes. And that blessing was very clear: “If you can catch even a part of our truth, that is enough.” They did not demand perfection. They understood what the creative process means and what fiction means in literature.
Above all, I wanted to get closer to them, to understand how they think and what they feel. I traveled with them, visited their homes, rode a motorcycle, crossed checkpoints with Basam. Gradually I got to know them. They became my friends. In fact, something more than that, they became my brothers.
Where are Rami and Basam today?
They are still best friends. They talk every day and travel the world together. Their message is simple, but at the same time very deep: we don’t have to love each other, we don’t even have to love each other, but we have to understand each other. After the October 7, Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s attack on Palestine, they were in constant contact. They were broken, angry, but that only made them even more connected.
You were not at all afraid that with this,
when you write about Israel and Palestine as a European, do you fall into moralizing or to give your own interpretation of what is happening in the novel?
I was scared to death to write this novel. I was completely terrified. But then I accepted this fear and allowed myself to persist in it. This fear kept me in suspense all the time. He protected me from self-sufficiency, and especially from the temptation to start moralizing or offering easy answers. If there is any moralizing in the book at all, it belongs to the characters, not to me as the author. My job was not to explain the world, but to try to understand it through them. And I think that’s why the book can be honest. Writing was like walking a tightrope, you’re always in danger of falling to one side or the other. Luckily I didn’t fall. (Laughs.)
Fear was useful in its own way.
Absolutely. My biggest fear was that people would say I was trying to portray Israelis or Palestinians as “good” or “bad”. Of course, it’s always easiest to point the finger and say: “They’re bad.” But reality is never that simple, it’s always much more nuanced, much more contradictory.
We often think of Israelis as a single, homogenous group – and we do the same with Palestinians. But when you get there, you see something completely different. You see people sitting in coffee shops, talking about music, philosophy, fashion, relationships, the same things as anywhere else. And this is precisely the point: these are not abstract categories, these are not political labels, these are people. And that is exactly what literature must do. He has to make his way to the people.
In today’s world, with everything going on, can literature reach people? Can it move, move the world off its course and change anything?
People can be touched, yes. Can it also change them? Maybe some. But even if he can’t – you still have to do it. If you’re a writer, you have to write. Books can be taken from us, platforms can be taken from us, even physical forms of storytelling can disappear. But there’s one thing they can’t take away from us: stories. It cannot be deleted from the world. It is the story that bridges the distance between you and me. This is what connects us. Some would say it’s sentimental, but I think it’s brave and strong. The problem with today’s world is that we no longer listen to each other. People who make wars don’t think about others, they only think about themselves. That is why those who are able to think of others are really important today.
Your novels often deal with stories that people would rather not hear. What draws you to these kinds of stories?
I don’t know and I don’t want to know. If I had known, I might have tried to repeat this way of writing, and by doing so I would have lost something essential, that wildness, the unpredictability that is necessary for writing. Sometimes you just have to follow your instincts.
I remember once saying that writing about real people means a lack of imagination. Six months later, however, I wrote about Rudolf Nureyev. So I say never trust a writer, we will always say something that later turns out to be wrong. But we live in a time obsessed with truth, facts, artificial intelligence. It is the writer’s job to enter that space and explore it. But the truth is that most of the time we don’t even know what we are doing. Writing is about endurance, desire, risk. Are you ready to fail? To embarrass yourself? Being attacked? If you are, then you can come up with a good story.
Do you think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will ever end?
Yes. Eventually. Rami and Basam often say: who would have thought that only twenty years after the Holocaust, there would be embassies and trade agreements between Germany and Israel? It seemed completely unthinkable at one point, but it happened. Therefore, they say that peace in this sense is inevitable. Not because it is self-evident or easy, but because history has shown again and again that even the most entrenched conflicts can be moved.
The question is not if it will happen, but when, how and at what cost. How long will it last, how many people will suffer in the meantime, and what kind of peace will it be, will it be just, will it be sustainable, or will it just be a temporary compromise? It was similar in Ireland. When I was younger, peace seemed completely impossible. Conflict was part of everyday life, something constant, almost natural. And yet there was a reversal. Peace has come. Not perfect, not tension-free, but real enough to change people’s lives.
And this is perhaps the key: peace never comes as a complete solution, but as a process, as something fragile that needs to be built all the time. Therefore, I believe that something similar could happen here. Not quickly, not easily, but someday.
The world seems to have derailed from all common sense rails. Why?
It’s true. And I don’t think anyone has a really clear answer as to why we got to this point. Of course, there are various explanations, the role of technology, capitalism, political interests are often mentioned, but none of them offers a convincing, comprehensive answer. In such a situation, I think something else is crucial: that we know how to listen. That we know how to listen to people like Rami and Basam, who, despite everything, insist on understanding the other. Perhaps it is precisely in such voices that at least part of the answer lies that we are otherwise so desperately searching for.
If you were writing the book today, would you change anything?
No, nothing. Events might have been different because the world had changed in the meantime. But the message of the book would remain exactly the same. x
