International collaborations a peace project: Swedish author

For Swedish children's author Martin Widmark, creative collaboration between countries, particularly in the field of literature is like a "peace project" that brings people closer.
Taking cue from the Sherlock Holmes legacy, Widmark along with Swedish writer Katarina Genar and Indian authors Anushka Ravishankar and Bikram Ghosh came together about two years ago to bring out the recently released crime fiction for children titled, "The Sherlock Holmes Connection."
"These collaborations and these stories floating between cultures is a actually a peace project. It is about learning how to respect other people in the world and if you don't know about other people, you don't know how to respect them or why you should respect them," Widmark says.

For the Swedish author who has collaborated with different artistes from across the globe prior to this book, such alliances increase one's sensitivity towards other cultures besides setting examples for children and encouraging them to work together.
"If we learn more about people from China, India, Italy or Poland, you probably have more attentive ears when you next hear news of what has happened in India or China. So, for me, it is more than a book. It is kind of a process getting people closer together.
"It sets a very good example for children to see that adults can do stories and solve problems together, because that is what we have to do in the future. We have to interact with each other and I think showing a collaboration with a great result is a good message for the children," he says.

"The Sherlock Holmes Connection"(Duckbill Books) is a collection of four separate short stories set between 1919(Sweden) and 2015(India), written individually by each writer, but strung together with Sherlock's iconic magnifying glass.

"With what's happening with Sherlock Holmes in films and
TV right now, this in a way is also an alternative interpretation of the Sherlock Holmes myth. What this book basically suggests is that the detective work was done by John Watson.
"It's always Sherlock Holmes who gets the credit because Watson is the narrator, but this suggests that it is in fact Watson who does all the job and that is why the magnifying glass is inherited by his family, instead of the Holmes family," publishers say.

Miss Watson, albeit different ones, is one central character who shows up in all the four stories, making the narrative flow like a single unit. While in Widmark's story, she is the daughter of John Watson, for Ravishankar and Genar, she is the grand-daughter and for Ghosh, she is the great grand-daughter of Holmes' closest accomplice.
The magnifying glass, for the writers, besides being an instrument of investigation, also sends out the message for the need to look closer at the happenings taking place around you.
"The magnifying glass is also a symbol for looking very intensely upon things - to take a closer look. That's the signal that I would like to give to the children - take a closer look upon everything and you can judge for yourself," Widmark, who has been a teacher for 8 years now, says.

From the popularity that Sherlock Holmes enjoys among Indian children, it is certain that this Indo-Swedish alliance will find a huge audience here, but "Holmes has never been a central part of Swedish literature."
"Sherlock Holmes is a universal symbol of detective thinking and that is what I am doing in the book- trying to involve with the reader so that they can feel like a detective themselves," Widmark says.
Insisting that the lack of familiarity with the tales of Sherlock's adventures will not come in the way of the book's readership, he says, "We don't need to make the extra turn to explain who is Sherlock Holmes, because we think that the four stories are strong enough in themselves."

"I think you can read the book even if you don't know so much about Sherlock Holmes," Genar says.