Yesterday at the Libertà festival in Rome the author Gaia Manzini asked me on stage about suicide.
A rather difficult theme, but since it is important in my novel "Birthmarks" I was glad that Gaia Manzini brought it up.
I'm always reminded - while talking publicly about this subject - of an event I did in Japan in 1999. My novel "Blue Mondays" had just been published in Japan, there were a few events, one in Nagasaki, and after a brief interview on stage there was time for q and a.
A young man asked the first question: "Have you ever thought seriously about suicide?"
I said: "No, to be honest, not seriously."
"Why not?" he insisted.