What happens when we die?

Originally asked

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

A recurring late-stage question in The Guardian Q&A, with materially different answers on publisher-hosted pages.

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

Recorded Nigel Havers said elsewhere, not written here
That’s the 64-million-dollar question.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 August 2026 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 51 →
Jenny Diski Novelist and essayist
I’d never been envious of those who believe in an afterlife until now. It would be so much cosier than dissolution. She’s gone to the next room. Nope, can’t manage it. She’s gone to dust and rubble. Gone nowhere. No where to go to. No she to go to it. Much easier to be convinced you will be met in Elysian fields by a thousand virgins, or drink from fountains of Manhattans. I can’t even get close to what they call faith, though I quite see Pascal had a point.
Recorded London Review of Books, 19 November 2015 source ↗
Albert Hammond Jr. Musician
No. I mean, it depends on how you look at it. In the sense that we all have a piece of cosmic dust in us from the beginning – The Big Bang – then yes. But no, I don’t believe in heaven or hell.
Recorded The Talks, 10 October 2013 source ↗
Frank Bowling
I hope I’ll find my mother and father in heaven. Only my father would probably say, “You can’t come and live here, boy!”
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 June 2026 source ↗

More from Nigel Havers

View profile →

More on death & what remains

Also answered this

Kerry Godliman, Bobbi Brown, Richard Eyre, Nuala McGovern, Kate Humble, Jon Sopel

Search the directory for somebody in particular.

Explore further

Report this answer