How COVID influenced author Maja Lunde's work

"I like the fact that my husband is at home during the day and we can have lunch together,"  Norwegian bestselling author Maja Lunde told DW when asked how a year of COVID affected her life.

Her diary, which she started a year ago at the beginning of the lockdown in Norway, opens with an argument between the couple. Maja Lunde was working on the fourth novel of her so-called Climate Quartet when the virus completely thwarted everyday life in her home country and Europe in March 2020. The author and mother of three suddenly found herself in a frightening reality with an uncertain outcome.

Her diary, with the Norwegian title De første dagene (which translates as "When the world stopped," not not available in English), was published as a book shortly afterwards and is probably her most personal work to date.

Lunde is particularly famous for her novels with a rather pessimistic perspective, some of which are set in the distant future. The History of Bees has been published in 30 languages. This was followed by the novels The End of the Ocean and Przewalski's Horse.

Maja Lunde shared with DW her views on the new pandemic reality, as well as her worries about youth and shame. 

DW: Your book "De første dagene" is about the beginning of the lockdown. Why did you publish your diary and why does it only cover the first 18 days, from March 11-29 2020?

Maja Lunde: When the pandemic hit Norway, I didn't know what to do. I had a really strange feeling of stepping into my own books. And that is partly, because I've been working on the topic of pandemics for quite some years.

My fourth book in the Climate Quartet will be about an illness hitting a small community in the future. I had done a lot of research about viruses and bacteria. I was really in the middle of building that story and trying to figure out which scenes belong into the story and what would happen, who my characters should be. I had started to write the book and then it was impossible to write. Because I felt like I was suddenly in a fiction story. It was so surreal.

But I was, after all, able to write what happened to me, and I really needed to write. I think it was a way of coping with the situation. Whenever I had a moment, I just sat down with my computer and wrote everything that happened. I think I wrote myself through that crisis.

When things calmed down a bit, as they did after a couple of weeks, I didn't have that urge to write the diary anymore. I felt some optimism. I could cope. And I started to write fiction again. That's why the book lasts 18 days. When I lived with the pandemic for a couple of weeks, I got used to it. And that is also a very important storyline in the book: How we get used to things, how we adapt.

The human being is extremely good at adapting. And we get used to the most strange things. We even got used to this. After a year now, this is what life is like. Thinking back feels like another age. A long time ago.

How are you and your family dealing with the situation now after a year with the coronavirus?

I feel that it still changes from week to week. Sometimes we have good news. Other times we have bad. And right now, Oslo has been locked down for a long time. And we are finally opening up again [in the middle of February 2021]. And that is really good because my sons can go to regular school and we are able to meet people again, a little at least. So today is an optimistic day. But then again, suddenly we get bad news with more mutants. And you never really know how tomorrow will be.

I was able to see my closest friends and my family during the last 12 months. But I have had to limit contacts with part of my family, which has been really sad. I met my friends mostly outside. So, we've been walking a lot. I feel like this has been the year during which we just walked and talked about the pandemic. That's all we've done. And of course, I've spoken a lot with people I love on the phone, which has helped a lot. But it's not the same, isn't it?

I usually work at home. What changed the most is that my children and my husband have been at home, too. And I would actually have to say that I like that. Not homeschooling because I find homeschooling to be really hard for the kids and for me as a mother as well. But I like that my husband is home and that we can eat lunch together. I definitely see some good stuff coming out of this, too.

The feelings, hopes and experiences you describe in your book might sound familiar to people in many countries. Do you recommend writing a diary in such critical times?

I'm not writing a diary now. But for me, writing is sort of a therapy, so if things get rough again, I would probably get that urge back. Now I have the urge to go back to fiction. There have been so many people telling me after reading my book that they thought a lot about writing a diary during the first days. Writing a diary is very much about getting in touch with your thoughts. It's about trying to define in words what's happening to you. And it is also about taking care of your memories and making sure you will not forget them. I definitely recommend people writing a diary when things are tough. I'm very glad I wrote the diary because I've already started to forget how these first weeks were.

Could you tell us about your most positive and most negative experiences in the last 12 months?

It's hard to pinpoint one specific thing. But when it comes to the most positive for me, it has been a calmer life, more time with my family. And looking at the small things in life and appreciating what you actually have. Gratitude has been a strong feeling over the past year. We suddenly realize everything we have. In Norway we haven't been locked up inside our houses, we have been able to be outside. Most of us live in contact with nature. And I think a lot of us here have felt a lot of gratitude for nature. That has probably been the most positive thing.

The most negative has been my worries for the children and young adults from day one. I really felt so sorry for all the kids, vulnerable kids being in an apartment with their families, parents that aren't good for them. I know a lot of young adults who have struggled very hard with the isolation due to the pandemic.

I really hope we take care of our young people when things open up again. We need to remember that they have been through some life-changing events at a very young age. When you are 16, you were supposed to go out. You're supposed to meet the world. And then you're suddenly stuck in your house with your mom and dad and nothing happens. You are not able to do all these small travels, both physical and emotional, that you were supposed to do in these years. And I know that the isolation has been really hard for a lot of young kids. I do hope we will remember that in the years to come. This year has changed a generation and they will probably need help to overcome what they've been through.

And what surprised you the most during the last 12 months?

It shouldn't be a surprise, because I've been working with this theme in my books, but when you see how easily the human being adapt to big changes, that's still a surprise. Even though I've known it on sort of an analytical level. But now I really lived it. That's our big advantage. And it is something we should take with us into the climate and nature crises. That we now know how easily we can adapt to large changes. And how easily and also how good we are at cooperating and working together in countries all over the world to solve a big, common problem, a threat for all of us. It's a good thing to remember in the years to come.

Do you feel better prepared for the upcoming challenges of the next months with the COVID crisis?

I don't know if I'm better prepared. I guess. Ever since summer or autumn, it's been a bit the same all the time. And sometimes it feels like it will never end. That we will walk on this pandemic road forever. I guess it's my brain's way of telling me that I should be prepared for everything. Because we thought the vaccine would solve everything quite quickly in 2021. And now we see that there are still so many tasks to deal with before we are over this. It's good to lower the expectations for how long this will take. And then we will get the positive surprise, some things actually solve quicker.

In your book you also write that you and your family's situation are still comfortable and privileged compared to other people in your country and in the world. How did you deal with that?

I am very aware of how privileged I am and we are in Norway and it gives me this feeling of gratitude that I talked about. Also sometimes I can feel sort of ashamed by how privileged we are. I write about it in the book, that I even sometimes feel ashamed about being ashamed. Which doesn't really take me anywhere, so I guess it's better to cling to the feeling of gratitude, isn't it?

So far, the characters in your books often have to deal and live in insecure times with pessimistic perspectives. In what way does your experience with COVID and the current situation influence your work as an author?

Well, it's been strange because now I finished the first draft of my fourth novel [of the Climate Quartet], which is about plants and seeds and everything that grows. But it is also about a small community being hit with an epidemic illness. I have had first-hand experiences with the epidemic now, so it's definitely been different to write these sequences with the illness in the book than it would have been if we hadn't had the virus. That's probably the biggest thing.