António Lobo Antunes (1942-2026): ‘I don't have answers, I only have questions’

For decades, his work was among the top of world literature and considered the Portuguese candidate for the Nobel Prize. He remained active until long, but rarely gave interviews. Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes died on 5 March this year. We spoke to him in September 2024.

12 September 2024

Posters of him in younger guise hang in the tiny corridor that the lift opens into. You can't miss it: this is where António Lobo Antunes lives. He kindly welcomes us to his smoky Lisbon flat. It is filled from plinth to ceiling with books - and himself. There are photographs, an abstract portrait of the author adorns the fireplace, and on the little wall that is still visible are sentences in his handwriting.

Lobo Antunes waves to the overstuffed bookcase. ‘These are the books I need to read this week, the rest are in the basement,’ he says half-seriously. ‘I like to be surrounded by books, they are good company. When I wake up at night and come here to drink water, they sleep. But really good books don't sleep. They are companions, they look at you, ask you questions: what have you made of life, what has life made of you? Their pages are mirrors; you see yourself. Not as you think you are, but as you really are. The best way to deal with people is to take them as they think they are and leave them alone...’

Smoke curtain

Interviewing António Lobo Antunes (1942) is like reading his books: it is something you undergoes. You really have no choice but to surrender to an endless stream of words that is hardly interruptible. He puts up a smoke screen, sometimes contradicts himself or makes statements that are inconsistent with previous utterances, and he may be really deaf, but also when it suits him. His facial expression changes constantly, from fierce to vulnerable, irritated, amiable or moved.

It is the same way in his books: as a reader, you are slowly spun into a web of distinctive voices talking, commenting, contradicting or arguing with each other. Sentences are interrupted and resumed or keep returning like a refrain. It is like being inside someone's head, or many heads at once.

Ever since his debut in the late 1970s, Lobo Antunes has employed this intoxicating and unique storytelling process, which he has refined more and more over the years.

Intense narrative style

Lobo Antunes’ books, which have been beautifully translated into Dutch by Harrie Lemmens for several years now, are definitely not everyone's friends: the narrative style is intense and requires a lot of concentration, tone and themes are raw and people rarely show their best side.

Also Horse shadow at sea, which was published in the Netherlands this spring, does not offer a pretty sight. It revolves around the demise of a family in which there were more secrets than love. At mother's deathbed, family history unfolds through many voices: the late husband was an unfaithful, gambling man, daughter Rita has died of cancer, Beatriz has had two failed marriages, Joao is gay and has contracted AIDS from his nocturnal visits to the park, Ana is addicted to heroin and Francisco plans to throw the elderly housekeeper out on the street and worries about what little family property remains. And then there is a tucked-away bastard son.

Testament

Critics called the novel, in which the author also denounces his own mortality, his bleakest book yet. ‘This book is your will, António Lobo Antunes, your last book, the book that lies yellowing when you are no more,’ he wrote, inviting speculation about his farewell as a writer.

But the cancer he was diagnosed with in 2007 has in no way felled him and there is no question of saying goodbye. In fact, he says with a twinkle in his eye and a cigarette in his hand, writing has never been easier for him than with the book he is currently working on.

Does writing usually bother you?

He sighs, ‘Yes, writing is very difficult for me. In the beginning, I always made a very detailed plan. Later, I understood that a book does not obey a plan. I am afraid to write, to disappoint people who trust and believe in me. Every book is difficult again. If I get to half a page a day, that's not bad. But the book I'm working on now is coming so fast, it's just a miracle. It's as if my arm and hand go by themselves and someone else dictates the words.’

What is it about?

‘I never think about that.’

Is that true? You have written several cycles of novels with a clear preconceived structure and an overarching theme, such as power.

‘I don't know. Take the characters: I don't see them in front of me, they are mere voices. People say I write polyphonic books, but I don't know if I agree with that. Maybe it's just one voice that keeps changing, coming and going... Writing is a kind of dilerium, you know. That first draft is sometimes great to write. But then the corrections come and sometimes it's like you're checking the work of schoolchildren. Horse shadow at sea is already an old book for me, but I know I was satisfied with it when I finished it. Usually, I like the first two months. After that, you do start thinking that it could be better. That you can penetrate deeper into the human heart.’

Plumply, he suddenly says: ‘I hardly give interviews anymore. The book has to answer the questions, not me. What is the importance of an interview? My views are just one - and besides, I don't have that many views. Publishers think it promotes a book. They are wrong.’

Is publicity of no use?

‘I think good books manage on their own. I don't need to help them, they lead their own lives. I don't like interviews. Of course not - I don't have much to say. I don't have answers, I just have questions. Every answer turns into another question. Maybe there are no answers, maybe it is not important to have answers at all. Maybe it is only important to keep asking yourself questions. Of course, like everyone else, I have read many interviews with writers, but almost always the books are a lot more interesting. Writing a book takes your time, your hopes and your health. So after that, it has to stand on its own two feet.’

So let's talk about your book. Some mention Horse shadow at sea your bleakest story and...

‘Stories are neither happy nor sad. I don't look at it that way either. What interests me is working with words and developing language. How can I translate emotions into words? How can I change the art of writing? Whether a story is perceived as happy or sombre depends on who reads it. For me, it makes me happy if I read a book that I like; whether it is happy or sad is irrelevant. There are only good or bad stories. Incidentally, I am not a storyteller. I am not like my friend Gabriel García Márquez. He writes stories. I don't.”

Well, novels...

‘I don't think they are either. It is so artificial to call something a poem or novel. History isn't either. What I like is to give dialogue the embodiment of a book. I have no stories to tell the world.’

You keep getting mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize. Does that bother you?

‘It leaves me indifferent. I have won literary prizes all over the world. I feel fortunate: how many people can make a living from being a writer? Many authors have to do all sorts of things on the side, be journalists or teachers. But if you really want to write, you don't have time for other things. When I was in Israel to receive the Jerusalem Prize for Literature, I was there with a writer friend, Amos Oz. I asked his wife how many hours a day he spent writing. She looked at me dumbfounded and said: he writes all the time. She was right, of course. The book you are working on is inside you - day and night.’

Is it...

‘...If I were a woman, I would never marry a writer. I couldn't live with it. I have three daughters and they always complain, “You are the most boring person on earth, because you are always writing, and when you are not writing, you are staring at the ceiling.” You're always working on your book, even when you're not writing.’

Before turning to writing full-time, Lobo Antunes worked as a psychiatrist. As the eldest son, he needed to follow in the footsteps of his father, a doctor. When his father asked him what he wanted to be, António said, “Writer.” “So you will study medicine,” his father replied.

After completing his education, Lobo Antunes was sent to Angola for 27 months in 1971 to take part in the colonial war. He took the deep marks this left as his subject in, among others The Judas kiss and the magisterial Fado Alexandrino. ‘They sent us to death in the name of abstract notions of motherland, honour, courage, glory. We were still children and knew nothing of life. No one coming back from a war is the same.’

Some of your books are about the war

‘No, I never wrote about the war. I couldn't. I touched on it sideways at most.’

Still...

‘I have never written about the war. That's impossible.’

Fado Alexandrino Is about impact of war on soldiers' lives. This is not about the war?

‘...It is impossible. Impossible to describe an ambush, the brutality of war. I never wrote about that, it was too violent, too cruel. Good people do terrible things.’

Do you think...

‘...Every year I go to lunch with my comrades. After that, I always have two, three bad nights. So imagine if I started writing about it - I wouldn't be able to sleep anymore.’

Do you talk to each other about it?

‘We understood each other without words. With my captain, I spent afternoons without saying a word, but it felt like we had discussed a lot. Later, when he was very ill - he died young of lung cancer - I said that I thought he was very brave at the time because he sometimes walked around in the dark with a torch while we were under fire. He was silent for a long time and then said, “That was because sometimes I preferred to die.” After six months in the war, it leaves you cold whether you are alive or dead. Thousands of men are still in psychiatric hospitals because of post-traumatic stress. So no, you can't talk about it.’

Is it possible to put something like that behind you?

‘I don't know. Probably the war is still inside me, but I feel happy now. When I had cancer a few years ago, it was reminiscent of the war, except that back then you could kill whoever was targeting you before he killed you. Cancer is inside you. I wasn't scared; I just felt a horrible emptiness. You suddenly have no future. There is no more road in front of you, just a wall.’

After an hour, António Lobo Antunes thinks enough is enough; his book is calling. He quickly displays the endless collection of translations of his work, which fill an entire room. On the wall hangs a black-and-white photograph of a dark woman. ‘Look at that woman's face, the expression in her eyes. Beautiful woman, isn't she?’

Is it a woman from Angola?

‘I think so. See that expression? Only women have such a look. All the world's suffering lies in it.’

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