Everywhere he goes people come out in droves richard fords books have won him millions of fans around the globe maybe hes right and we all do have to same dream but what exactly is that dream. Richard ford is one of the Great American Story Tellers a master at observing the world around him his novels are populated by characters that have become part of the World Literature and when it comes to his homeland ford likes to tell it like it is dispelling the myths and legends. This is the place he calls home maine in the northeast of the u. S. 40 lives here with christina his wife of more than 50 years their house is located far from the big cities which have never been a draw for them in maine ford is surrounded by lakes and forests where he can go hunting. But most of all here he finds the peace and quiet to write always by hand he stores his notebooks in the freezer in case the house catches fire. It makes me laugh its so. Funny because well myself well enough the chaos and all the different qualities and all these tiny little hairs this is exactly what i want out of that. I wrote this which is its really me. All of his books are dedicated to his wife christina his most important reader i remember i said to christina one time before we were married i had been in law school. Very core. Other things which. Are said i think im going to try to be a writer this is 60. 60 and she said oh thats a good idea. Maybe what ill get a job when you study home to write books and thats exactly what weve done for the last 50 years. During that time hes written 7 novels 5 short story collections and a memoir and become world famous his best known character is named Frank Bascombe he 1st turned up in the sportswriter in 1986 back then bascom was a divorced failed writer in his late thirtys he became the hero actually the antihero of 3 further books bascom changed careers battled cancer and fought about life and the state of the nation his observations were ironic conic and grand. We catch up with richard ford in hamburg hes come here to accept a literary award for his lifes work. Its a thrill to interview this renowned author but nerve racking too as ford has a reputation for getting pleasant when hes annoyed. For instance when fellow writer Alice Huffman wrote a negative review of his novel the sportswriter for it got a copy of one of her books picked up his gun so he says shot it. Then he mailed her what was left of it. So lets focus on Frank Bascombe instead hes seen as a typical american every man a character in which everyone can recognize some aspect of themselves but ford says not true there is no such thing thats just something some cockamamie critic dreams up. Hes a very specific man hes hes hes a divorce hes a hes a father of 3 children he takes a job he lives in new jersey he could hardly be any more specific than he is the notion that every man is a if this is far as a concerned a misguided idea. Asks us to generalize about people in ways that individuality in the literature invites us to see people in particular you know. We can only do good in particular we can only do bad in particular so thats what im interested in im not interested in seeing the world from outer space spacy eternity that is to want to see people that way. The melancholy character Frank Bascombe travels throughout his country observing thinking about and commenting on the disasters that befall him to the public and the private but he doesnt take anything or anyone too seriously nor does he let things get him down but the america hes described for over a quarter of a century has changed quite a bit since 2014 when the last bascom novel was published. What would best comes place be and in todays america and triumph america well thats a question i cant answer i can tell you what richard feels about all these things but what Frank Bascombe who cares because my best im just a made up creature you know he would think whatever i made him think and i might make him think Something Like what i think which is that trump is a disaster and not even funny and a threat to the world but if i were going to write about what frank thought about him. I would probably write a more nuanced view of President Trump just to make it interesting you know on the high i have a kind of a working theory about not only my own life but yours and Frank Bascombe stroup which is to which is what i call oppositional thinking so i would try to if i were writing about frank and trump i would try to find something provocative for him to say. Richard ford has never made any secret of his dislike for the current us president but he says the reasons that his country and perhaps the entire world is so divided go far beyond donald trump. For there to many people. And a lot of those people dont have anything and theyre living in places where they dont have enough food and they dont have any education and but theyve all got cell phones and theyve all got t. V. s and they can very easily see that when you notice right up here the other side of the ocean there are a lot of people who are doing a lot better than we are why is that doesnt seem fair it isnt fair and so what why are we divided were divided about what we should do about those people those people who dont live in our country but who have a right to succeed or who have a right to thrive and who have a right to humanitarian. Resources and its there is nothing any of us is going to be able to do to deny these people the equality that they seek because there are more of them there are of us those who are privileged there are more of them and they have a more compelling reason to advance their interests so what we have to figure out how to do is a problem with a van and accommodate ourselves to them. The land of the free home of the brave the American Dream. The leads. Generations of people have dreamed of enjoying freedom prosperity and success in the u. S. But theres a dark side to this picture too wars violence and protest. That the us is the land of supposedly tips here everythings a bit larger than life. Even the landscape with its wide open spaces and seemingly endless horizons but is america still the land of our dreams so stop with the American Dream the American Dream is the german dream. Theyre American Dream is the zambian dream and American Dream is the icelandic dream which is to try to provide for your children to have at least as good if not a better life than you and to do little harm in the world thats what the American Dream is. Yet the america that richard ford describes in his novels seems a little anacreon istic its in america dominated by white people white men in particular its an image thats been communicated to us for decades mostly by men. Including great writers like john updike. Philip roth. John irving. As well as younger authors like paul auster and Jonathan Franzen there is the world of americas white middle class one thats predominantly male. Philip ross drawn up dont you why on earth why are the so few successful female writers in america i think if you look closely you would fire that if there were not few if they were really quite of quite or quite many in fact on other words i think you have your statistics wrong you may be talking about mid century but again. If there was a time then i dont think its true now but if there ready was a time when there was a disproportionate number of white male writers disproportionate number of fewer women writers its because men were only publishing houses it wasnt because men were readers more than women were running publishing houses or taking advantage of the universities women werent allowed to go to Ivy League Schools until the sixtys all of these things these are not mysteries these are these are knackered newsoms they are corrected as fast as we possibly can. Today americas diversity is being reflected in literature as an all of the arts like never before black writers like to call have Won International acclaim nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi adichie told the world how she only became black after coming to america and authors Jennifer Egan and donna tartt regularly feature on the bestseller lists so richard fords right when he says there are more women theres more diversity though the Book Business is still largely in the hands of men and many critics still prefer to review the works of their favorite male authors nevertheless the literary world is changing. Richard fords latest work is a trip into the past published in 2017 between them remembering my parents is a memoir of 2 people who are gone and a way of life which is disappearing america as the land of opportunity where people could find prosperity and happiness your latest book between them is a memoir of your parents. My 2 to read. My view as i wrote it i read it his large malleable fleshy face was given to smile on his 1st face. Was always the smiling one good long irish lip the transparent blue eyes my eyes my mother must have noticed this when she met him wherever she did in hot springs or little rock some time before 1928 noticed this and liked what she saw a man who liked to be happy she had never been exactly happy only in exactly with the nuns who taught her salience and for smith where her mother had put her to keep her out of the way. Richard ford was born in 1904 he was the long awaited only child and now and parker ford who were no longer young by the time he was born. Parker was a traveling salesman and became a housewife after the birth of her son. But when richard was just 16 years old his father died of a heart attack his parents and their hopes and dreams are the focus of fords latest book. 2 you write that your father was a man who liked to be happy yes if thats the life goal you share yes it certainly is i mean who wouldnt want to be happy i mean i dont know anybody even the unhappiest people in the world who would rather be happy because a lot of Philip Larkin seeing this poet who said about himself he says of all the unhappy people in the world i am the happiest. I wouldnt say that about myself because im not one of the unhappy people in the world but if you thought he was and he thought that thats what his basic human nature was was not happy and he was still the happiest every unhappy. For your father who died in 1960 when you were 16 his American Dream was to live in the suburbs and and have a car it would seem so and but you already said what was your maybe what was not your American Dream what was your dream of life when you were young and when he died stealing and breaking into houses and doing all that kind of foolishness i wanted to do that seem to be adventurous to me. Meaning i point out to you if you look terrible society it was a race to be divided Apartheid Society we only lived in a part of it in that little part that we lived in was made absurd by being separate from the rest of the population. We knew that we knew how absurd our life was and if you know that youre leading an absurd life i think we need you or can lead you to do absurd things so i did a lot of certain things yes and that made my goal was to get away with it and their goal was to see that i did not get or. You said in interviews that your parents were sort of like. Characters you wouldnt notice them if you meet them in the real world does that also apply to your fictional characters that you want to get them out of the shadows possibly possibly. It isnt that i think that everybody is interesting if you look closely at them i dont know if you would find my parents to be interesting if you look closely at them but when i write about them i am not just looking at them i am dedicating a language to them and in the process of dedicating the language to them to my close notice then i then i can. Emphasize i can notice i can make important things that perhaps would not seem important in other words. With characters in fiction very much as with characters in them or the role of the notice or is significant in fiction you can have the notice or notice anything in nonfiction in a memoir you could only notice what it is you can only you can only draw upon fact whereas you can make everything up you want to read fiction watch which is why fiction finally for me is a more so it full more rich way of noticing the world in a sermon the. C many successful novels are adapted into films so its surprising that only one of richard fords books has made it onto the Silver Screen the drama wild life released in 2018 is based on his novel of the same title set in montana in the 1960 s. Its the story of how a 16 year old joes life goes off the rails 1st his father loses his job. And then his mother falls in love with another man and consequently leaves her family. You could see it as a melancholy farewell to the American Dream and its ideals like so many of richard fords books yet. It was so why is it that only one of his best selling novels has been made into a film. I mean by and large american movies are terrible and so. Maybe my books are terrible or not. So i may be appalled they know i just made wild life and. Ive seen it its really quite good. But you know novels that i write generally are all taken up with language and with the new. With the nuances of Human Behavior and with discovering motives and consequences to Human Behavior that were not known before i dont know if American Films specialize in those kinds of nuanced approach is to life i think that the they paint with a wider brush and thats because if i could be so bold as to say that in the United States making movies is about one thing and one thing only scratch no money and theyre not going to spend any money if theyre not going to get any money back and so it becomes very hard to make good movies. With a small amount of money i mean the whole independent movement in feature film making in america scrambles after nothing but money and eventually that just takes over so. Theyre looking for someplace. Where it didnt cost as much to shoot the film theyre looking for actors ready who wont get their usual fee there you know people come to me all the time and they say. Look we like to make a movie out of your book which happens to me fairly often and then they say unfortunately we dont have a lot of money and what i say is well good bye. Because what i want for you is money here ford makes no distinction between big hollywood productions and art house cinema after all why should he give away his hard work and im not an idiot. I have to buy eggs and bacon you know just like everybody else and so on that i just know the 1st time somebody comes to me well we love your book wed love to make a movie out of it unfortunately and this is the phrase that hollywood people used to say you know worst where were using our own money for this and i say well thats funny i use my own money when i buy a car doesnt seem exceptional i dont care if you steal it from your grandmother you know give it to me. So i play myself here pretty tough talk but richard ford is someone whos always kept his feet firmly on the ground and as with all of his many accolades he views his equally lens prize for his lifes work as being about more than just himself. There are a lot of good writers in the world and whenever you get an award basically youre getting an award for your colleagues before the ones who dont happen to be here today i dont know if all of my colleagues believe that maybe they think that awards are always for their greater glory but ive been doing this long enough that i think that were all writing books in the service of the same ends which is to say to induce people to read and to induce readers to undergo the experience of a mass of the literature which is to reaffirm life which is to renew language which is to say theres always something more in the world than what we may be a captive of on any given day. On the evening ahead of the Award Ceremony hundreds of people came to hear richard forgiver reading in hamburg he was greeted like a superstar. Books by american authors are extremely popular in germany. But its largely a case of unrequited love as few german books are translated into english for the American Market so its a little surprising that richard ford names thomas mine as one of his literary role models anyone else. Is there any german writer you always wanted to read and didnt so far yeah Good Progress ive never really succeeded in reading Good Progress. Good talk last was one of germanys best known writers a Nobel Laureate and an intellectual who often courted controversy he died in 2015 ford even knew him. Though not terribly well ive tried to read the tin drum 20 times but i was old enough you know sometimes you really you dont read books not because the book is defective because youre not old enough for it is the same within reach james i havent read all of her james i just havent been old enough you have to you have to somehow be at the maturity. To to succumb to what the book is to be important and so. I havent tried the 10 drop of while. The tin drum is going to cause this seminal novel from 1959 later it was made into an Academy Award winning film covering the history of the 20th century as told by the dwarfish character oscar mattress. And i knew gunter so im embarrassed to say i knew him and his books but here but did he read your books of course not going to ask you no he didnt read. What he read. What a laughable faith. And i dont hold it against him i mean some Young American writer that he doesnt know you know stealing away the audience from that might be his books i dont blame him i wouldnt read me. Is richard ford really that selfdeprecating or just trying to be funny. If there are any literary wish one burning desire that you have not fulfilled here well i never had any to begin with so. All i ever wanted to do was my best. And ive done that ive written some good books ive stayed married to the girl i loved all these years. I have in my brain and then my notebook all kinds of things that interest me i have another Frank Bascombe book not written but more or less ready to be written so if the book that im writing now doesnt succeed in my own terms i have Something Else to do. I try to make it be. Life. Thank you mr falkirk you very much its a pleasure yeah for the pleasure of to meet your Great Company of our daughter. Richard ford an American Writer who is living out his own dream. Not only. That. Many of us instead of a comrade friend. The full force of fear. Like. The 4th generation vehicle the floors new carriage. Pop open the champagne and celebrates its 100th anniversary on the test track and fans of classic cars are the by the. Projects in 30 minutes t. W. The world is getting more simple. More kids asteroids a lot of problems. The global 3000 talks would seem with british researchers who take a more optimistic view. The world is not always a good plan but its much much better than it was at how. Is the world really getting better. A global 3000. 00 special reports. Starts august 19th sunday didnt. Go into an official estimates more than 1200000 venezuelans live in colombia needy and illegally. Already eckel all the album was returned to vast. Visit friends i dont think id ever go back there to live you know what i live there again i dont know so im not sure. The witness global news that matters. Made for mines. Early the global tourist gartner money is booming capital i love berlin the full scope of the multicultural metropolis you know were dramatic series the bad out of balance ones like the tourism in new mexico i love theater in motion once again switzerland looks like swiss like neat pushbikes as the 50 nations of the 50 story. And to teach very personal tips on berlin some very disturbed. Looking down. Everyone called t. W. Cut. Player. This is d w news live from berlin and lawmakers in the u. S. Demand answers after disgraced billionaire Geoffrey Epstein dies in jail in an apparent suicide it was facing sex trafficking charges that could have implicated the rich and powerful also coming up. Hong kong Police Used Tear Gas after protests turned violent this comes after activists define a ban on demonstrations and throw rocks at officers if the test weekend of antigovernment demonstrations in the