Most of us don't notice it, but death, math, and insurance play a surprisingly central role in literature and film. Dan Skwire is an actuary, but when he's not performing complex mathematical calculations, he's studying classic authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Daniel Defoe to see how actuarial work manifests itself in art. Writers like Kafka and Wallace Stevens were insurance executives by day, and men of letters by night.
In an interview with The Story, produced by North Carolina Public Radio - WUNC, Dan Skwire talks about some of the articles he’s written on the intersection between literature and actuarial issues.