BJÖRN’S THOUGHTS

Ever since I as a young man read Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel (a Christmas present from Roy Andersson 1982), I have been fascinated by Céline’s life and works. Over the years, I believed I had come to grasp the driving force behind his exceptional use of language. And after reading Milton Hindus' book, Crippled Giant, about his visit to Céline and his wife (and cat Bébert), I summoned the strength to write a play about their encounter in the summer of 1948, at Céline's rental cottage close to the small Danish town of Korsør.

In my opinion, Céline was deeply traumatized after participating in World War I. He was a front soldier in some of the most bloody battles and, of course, marked for life by these experiences. Oddly, this is seldom taken into account when Céline is dismissed for some of his questionable opinions. One third of his generation, around six million young Frenchmen died in the muddy trenches. And their enemies on the other side of the  minefields were no less traumatized when they later repeated their formative experiences: violence and blood.

One day, I hope write a novel extending the story that led to the play I wrote for the Gothenburg Municipal Theater, Europe's Knife.

The title was inspired by Zygmunt Bauma who wrote: "The history of Europe is a knife with its’ blade turned into the future."