Experiencing Germany

You go into the country to write. Is the hustle and bustle of Bamberg, this small university town with 70,000 inhabitants, just too much?

I was naive enough to put our telephone number into the telephone book. The more famous I became, the more calls I got. I get inquiries from schools, bookshops and libraries – mainly requests for readings. Publishers want to invite me to contribute to anthologies. Oetinger asks how far on I am with the new manuscript. And then, there are also those calls when a shy children's voice asks if I am "the" Paul Maar, and then says that my books are "very nice" and asks if there's another volume of Herrn Bello.

No sooner have I thought out a particularly good sentence and am just about to write it down than the phone rings again. It would seem the best thing to do would be to go out into the solitude of the country. There are no telephones there. And also no TVs.

Bamberg has the largest undamaged historic town centre in Germany and has been on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1993. What does it feel like to live in a World Heritage Site?

It feels very nice – even if, on some days, you wish that a few hundred tourists less would swarm through the Old Town.

What do you value most about this town?

The distinctive townscape. And also that I can reach all the shops, the bank, cinemas, the doctor's and friends on foot from our house in the Old Town.

You've received countless prizes and awards for your books for children and young people. In 2004 you received the Citizen's Medal of the town of Bamberg for special services for the benefit of the town and its citizens. Did this prize mean something special to you?

Yes, I finally felt like a citizen of Bamberg.

Didn't you before?

I was born in Lower Franconia and, although my home town of Schweinfurt is only 50 kilometres away, the dialect spoken differs decisively. And as in Bamberg – as probably is the case in most German provinces – the sense of belonging together depends on an identical way of speaking, people always tended to see me as an outsider ("Reingeschmeckter"), even if at the baker's or the weekly market I tried to forget my High German and speak Franconian. Now however I know that "Brötlich" (rolls) and "Mädlich" (girls) from Lower Franconia are called "Brötla" and "Mädla" here.

What should one not miss – apart from the Old Town – when one visits Bamberg?

One definitely ought to see the massive Cathedral Square, a lesson in art history: the Cathedral itself was begun in the Romantic period and completed in the Gothic period. The Old Court (Alte Hofhaltung) next to it is a wonderful Renaissance building and opposite it stands the Baroque Residence – with a rose garden well worth a visit and from which one has a wonderful view of the roofs of the Old Town.

And of course one mustn't miss a concert by the Bamberger Symphony Orchestra at the Concert Hall.

In Summer, the Bamberg "Keller" (cellars) are especially popular, that is, the beer gardens on the Stephansberg and Kaulberg. Do you go there too?

I often go to the Stephansberg but not often to the Kaulberg. What I like about these beer gardens – along with the good-quality beer of Bamberg – is the fact that the landlords don't object to you bringing a picnic basket with you and unpacking your caprese or sandwich with your family or friends.

You've written lots of plays for children and young people. Are there theatres for them in Bamberg?

There's the ETA Hoffmann Theatre here but the theatre director prefers to put on his own children's plays, so my plays tend to have their premiere at the Fränkisches Theater Schloss Massbach, the theatre of our daughter Anne.

Among your best known works are your stories about The Slurb (Das Sams), a somewhat cheeky mythical creature. Both films that have been shot now – "The Slurb" (Das Sams) and "Danger for the Slurb" (Sams in Gefahr) – were filmed in Bamberg. There are even city tours to the places where it was originally filmed. What role does the backdrop of Bamberg play in your Slurb stories?

When I wrote the Slurb stories I had not yet moved to Bamberg. In my imagination, however, Mr Taschenbier lived in an average South German town. The fact that the film was finally shot here was because of the director Ben Verbong. He visited me, fell in love with the town and was adamant that he wanted to film it here.

Apparently there was a model for Mrs Rotkohl from the Slurb in reality – a housekeeper who was continually telling her children what to do. Are there a lot of Mrs Rotkohls in Bamberg?

The role model in question didn't live in Bamberg but in a Swabian town where my family lived at the time. I haven't met a Frau Rotkohl here in Bamberg – honestly!

"The Slurb" has a great many blue wishing spots. If you had one, what would you wish for your town?

As I prefer to travel to my reading venues by train, a station with an ICE connection to Frankfurt, Cologne and Hamburg. From Bamberg to Würzburg it takes just about as long as from Würzburg to Hamburg.

There are two memorials to ETA Hoffmann in Bamberg where the romantic writer is always depicted together with his mythical creations: in the grove (Hain), that is, in the town park at the Schiller Meadow (Schillerwiese) with the speaking dog Berganza and in front of the house at Schillerplatz 26 with his cat Murr. If Bamberg ever decided to put up a Maar statue, with whom would you like to be portrayed and where would it be best for the statue to stand?

If you take the rather bold idea of a Maar statue a little further: it should be put up at my favourite walk at the Hain. If the condition was that I agree to be depicted together with one of my figures, then my favourite one would be the tattooed dog.

Why that one in particular?

Because the person making the statue would be sure to have great fun engraving all the tattoos onto the figure of the dog. In any case, one's first book is always special.