Best-selling French author Bernard Werber visits Seoul for release of latest book “Death”

Posted on : 2019-06-06 16:30 KST Modified on : 2019-06-06 16:30 KST
French novelist Bernard Werber holds a press conference regarding the Korean translation of his latest book “Death” at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul on June 5.
French novelist Bernard Werber holds a press conference regarding the Korean translation of his latest book “Death” at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul on June 5.

Renowned novelist discusses death, spirituality, and genre fiction and praises S. Korean readers. 

“I have no way of knowing if there’s another life after death, or if nothing remains. What is certain is that we are still alive, and that we should use that to accomplish something. The woman who is the main character in my novel ‘Death’ says, ‘You must preserve your body well to make the soul want to stay around.’ It’s dialogue from the story, but I also think those words could be guidelines for all of our lives.”

French novelist Bernard Werber holds a press conference regarding the Korean translation of his latest book “Death” at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul on June 5.
French novelist Bernard Werber holds a press conference regarding the Korean translation of his latest book “Death” at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul on June 5.

Best-selling French author Bernard Werber paid a visit South Korea for the release of the Korean translation of his latest work “Death” (Open Books). “Death” is the story of a writer who dies suddenly one day and is helped by a psychic to track down the person responsible. Werber discussed “Death” and his literary body of work in a press conference at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul’s Sogong neighborhood on the morning of June 5.

“I think our generation has been pretty fortunate. Our survival issues are more or less taken care of, which allows us to ask ourselves questions like ‘Why was I born?’ or ‘What kind of invisible world might there be?’ or ‘What happens after we die?’ When we don’t pose questions like these, our lives become meaningless. I think it enriches us internally the more we pose questions to ourselves.”

Werber also explained the reason he often uses non-human protagonists such as animals, gods, and spirits in his fiction is “because I wanted to preserve some distance and view the human world objectively.”

“What has the potential to save humankind from the crisis the global village is currently facing is the question ‘Who are we really?’ What I’ve done is to use entities besides humans as protagonists in order to seek answers to that question,” he said.

“I’ve been writing fiction for nearly 30 years since by debut novel ‘The Ants,’ but it hasn’t changed all that much, in that I’ve continued to focus on the spiritual world. I also still listen to music when I’m writing,” he said.

“Where the changes come from when I’m writing fiction is in terms of the theme. This novel is the first time I’ve had a protagonist who is a writer like me.”

Werber noted that the French media “don’t focus very much on imaginative literature [genre fiction], which they don’t see as being ‘serious literature.’”

“But while Jules Verne was treated as a children’s author in the past, he lauded as a great author 50 years after his death,” he noted.

He also said, “I think my books read well in South Korea because South Korean readers are the most intellectual and future-oriented in the world.”

“That’s why I place great importance on my promise to visit South Korea and my schedule here. I’d like to meet a Korean shaman while I’m visiting,” he added.

French novelist Bernard Werber holds a press conference regarding the Korean translation of his latest book “Death” at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul on June 5.
French novelist Bernard Werber holds a press conference regarding the Korean translation of his latest book “Death” at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul on June 5.

Werber also offered a hint at his next work “Pandora’s Box,” which he said would have “reincarnation as a key theme.”

Werber’s latest South Korea visit is his first in three years since 2016. On the evening of June 6, he is scheduled to deliver a talk on the topic “Imagination and Suffering” at the COEX Starfield Library in Seoul. At 7 pm on June 11, he will be giving a talk on “The Possibility and Future of Genre Literature” at Seoul’s Mapo Central Library. The author also plans to participate in several book signing events for fans.

Some 12 million copies of works by Bernard Werber have been sold in South Korea to date, with “The Ants,” “The Ultimate Secret,” “The Tree of Possibles,” and his “Gods” cycle each registering over one million copies in cumulative sales. Werber also ranked first overall in a 2016 calculation of total cumulative sales for different South Korean and overseas authors over the past 10 years by Kyobo Books.

By Choi Jae-bong, literature correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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