A Woman to Love

An author’s warm, moving tribute to his longtime friend and the nuances of a relationship shaped by deep affection, distance, illness, and loss.

I don’t know why, but the first word that comes to mind when I recall that meeting with Olga is “period.” A black period or full stop. She came into the large living room, said nothing, stood to one side as if the rest of us were a sentence and she was the period at the end of it.

When Theodor Kallifatides met Olga in the 1960s—she was 19, and he just a few years older—it marked the beginning of a friendship that would last more than 3 decades and profoundly touch his life. Theodor was a relatively new arrival in Sweden, having emigrated from Greece, while Olga was born there to a Greek father and a Russian mother. Part of a multicultural Stockholm community, they bonded quickly and kept in touch throughout a series of separations, enduring the ebbs and flows of jobs and relationships.

One day, Olga calls her friend because she wants to see him. She tells him that she is suffering from an incurable illness. After her death, Theodor writes this simple yet profound novel as a memorial to her. He revisits the memories, encounters, feelings, and reflections sparked by their relationship over the years, particularly during Olga’s illness. At times, tears well up in his eyes; at others, he cannot stop laughing. A book to cherish, about a woman to love.