Esther Freud: How close have you come to dying?

The question

How close have you come to dying?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Esther Freud

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

My parents died within four days of each other. I was engulfed as I ran from one bedside to another.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 July 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

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Adam Clayton

When I was drinking, there were many times when I was out for the night and didn’t come back for a week.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 December 2024 source ↗

Andrea Bocelli

As a young man I had a car accident on a foggy night that left the vehicle looking like a squashed box, even though, by some miracle, I walked away unscathed.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 November 2024 source ↗

Desmond Tutu Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984

And actually now having had the advantage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and being able to look at some of the records of what the apartheid government was doing, the thing that is surprising to me is why so many of us survived. I mean, how is it that they did not assassinate more of us?

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗

Ian McEwan British novelist and screenwriter