Bernadine Evaristo: How close have you come to death?

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.

Recorded Bernadine Evaristo said elsewhere, not written here

Travelling Europe with a friend, when I was 29. She was driving and the brakes went, on one of those vertiginous Italian mountains. It was terrifying for the 20 minutes it took to coast down the mountain.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 July 2020 source ↗

Others on this question

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Ed Harris American actor and director

Near head-on collision driving from Oklahoma to California back in the 70s.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 August 2007 source ↗

Noah Harari Israeli historian and philosopher

I was almost run over by a bus when I was 13. And in 1991, in the Gulf war, an Iraqi missile hit close to my house.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 October 2021 source ↗

Alison Moyet English singer

When I was doing my gold swimming badge. I had to get undressed in a swimming pool and had forgotten my gym kit, so the teacher gave me a kit two sizes too small. In the water, I got my arms up over my head to get the shirt off and they locked. I sank to the bottom of the pool and sat there until a girl jumped in and dragged me back up again.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 June 2017 source ↗

Philippa Perry Psychotherapist and author