How the world says goodbye.

"About 155,500 people die every day, about two every second, and one day it will be my day too.

But.

First, I want to grow old. Preferably very old and sturdy, bossy too. Don't let me become that compliant, old, beige woman.

Don't let me become fearful of what is outside.

Let me be free, dance, kiss and move.

Let me laugh and let me be. With wrinkles, folds and hanging skin.

How I love this life, but let me grow old and be friends with the unknown mystery of death."

– Lieve Blancquaert

In Birth Day and Wedding Day, Lieve Blancquaert explored how we welcome our children and how we love. With this latest volume, she completes the circle and narrates how people around the world age and say goodbye, using beautiful images and moving stories from different cultures and religions.

Blancquaert meets happy centenarians, mourners, dead people, gurus and gravediggers. She visits retirement homes, health institutions, mortuaries and funeral homes and attends festive funerals and touching death rituals. The Western taboo surrounding death is transcended in most cultures by a natural approach to the end of life. The souls and even the bodies of the deceased belong to the living forever.

More than a book about dying, Last Days is a powerful, unseen ode to life.

Last Days is the final part of Lieve Blancquaert’s cycle about important moments in human life: birth (Birth Day), marriage (Wedding Day) and death (Last Days). This project is available as a book and as a documentary series.

You can order the book here: https://hannibalbooks.be/en/last-days#1208