Karin Fossum questioned

 

Hello Karin Fossum. We are a Dutch Facebook page with over 9,200 members in the Netherlands and Belgium. We also have our own blog. We would really like to ask you a few questions on behalf of our members of Thrillerlezers! if that's okay?

Hello. Let me first say, that some of your questions are difficult to answer.

Please tell us the 4 most characteristic features of yourself and your books?

Writing is something intuitive.

I try not to judge. I have allways ment, that criminell minds are also humans, and there is a reason why they have become criminels.

Serial killers is not interesting.

I allways write with sympathy, for the guilty one and for the victim.

You write in your book Lotgenoten/Drepende drage:

 'Never do that, Adelson, never marry a writer. They spend large portions of the day in an alternative reality. You constantly have to get them out of situations while you yourself are on the outside, and out of universes populated by people you never get to see.'

Is this autobiographical and the way you look upon yourself, or is this the opinion of people close to you?

This is not me, and this is not how my family look upon me and mye work. I have much disiplin. I work early hours, and then I leave my fiction to come out in the reality.

For your 2nd book, Don't look back/Se deg ikke tilbake! you received, for the 1st time, the Rivertonprisen/Riverton Prize, a Norwegian literature prize, and the Glass Key for the best Scandinavian crime novel. What does it mean to you, getting such an award?

Awards make me very happy, but just for a day or so. Then I must go to work, and awards can not help me with my writing.

Your books are full of very ordinary characters, it could be my neighbor, my colleague or it could be me. People who, through a mix of coincidences and circumstances, suddenly cross a line and commit a crime. Do you use personal experiences, or those of your acquaintances, for the subjects of your books?

I once had a friend, who committed a murder. I knew this person very well, as a very good human beeing. It did something to me. When I write, I show you the human beeing first, and then I show you the crime, hoping that you will see the whole picture.

Most killers are ordinary people. Only in crime fiction, people kill again and again.

Your descriptions of nature, circomstances or situations are very visual and your characters and their thoughts have a psychological depth that is very empathetic to readers. How do you achieve that?

Well. How do we achieve things? I do a lot of thinking. I am almost 68, and I have known many people, all kinds of pepole. I use what I have seen, its like digging very deep. So that you readers will see them like I do.

Furthermore, they have a very calm structure. Yet there are also some very gruesome fragments in which a perpetrator suddenly goes completely crazy. Do you have a preference for certain scenes, calm and beautiful or cruel and gruesome, or do you like to write everything?

I enjoy to write everything! I love to work with words, details, rythm, it sometimes feels like music. I was deep into music as a child.

There is one book with Konrad Sejer that has not been translated and released in the Netherlands and Belgium, 'Carmen Zita og doden' (2013), was there a reason for that and will it ever be released overhere?

I can not answer this. I do not know why Carmen Zita was not translated.

How did you come up with the subject for Lotgenoten/Drepende drage, angrende hund, it’s so full of dreariness and has such a gloomy atmosphere?

This is very much my own life. But I have also done things to make it more interesting for you readers. I usually say: If you grew up with a pussycat, you must turn it into a tiger, to make people interested.

A new series with Eddie Feber. We hope to read a lot more about him, was it very difficult to say goodbye to Konrad Sejer and was there a reason for quitting him? 

It was never sad to say goodbye to Konrad Sejer. I turned into another caracter, and there are no more room for «the old one.»

What is the best compliment you ever received regarding your books?

Best compliment? When someone says: I never read crimestories. Only yours.

What famous book by someone else would you’ve liked to write yourself, and why?

A bit different, of course. But the novel «In cold blood» from Capote. A piece of true crime long before it became so popular.

What would we find, if we were allowed to take a look at your bookshelves? Do you have authors who are role models for you, and if so who are they?

First of all, I have favourite books. Not favourite writers. But of course, there are so many good ones. The best way to become a better writer, is to read all the best novels.

What is the most frightening thing you’ve ever experienced?

My most frightening thing in my life is a private matter.

Are you already working on a new book, and can you tell us anything about it?

I am allways working. Meaning seven days a week. Do not care to much of holidays.

And finally a few very quick questions:

Summer or Winter?

I prefer the months between september and march. I was born in november, thats my month.

A healthy juice or something with alcohol?

Juice ot alcohol? Both, thank you.

Stekt fisk or fish and chips?

Fish of all kinds, baked, fried, cooked.

Odin or Zeus?

Odin.

On behalf of Thriller Readers! and all our members, thank you very much and good luck with your next book. Kind regards!

I hope you can get something out of my answers. Thank you so much for all your interest!

Kind regards, Karin.