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Finnish writer Joel Haahtela pursues the trail of his childhood hero in Munich – and talks about Oliver Kahn, the people of Munich and Herta Müller's influence on his writing. By Barbara Galaktionow

"It looks very modern." Joel Haahtela gazes at the deserted Munich Olympic Stadium – from above at roughly 190 metres. He dared to climb the Olympic tower in spite of his latent fear of heights. Haahtela doesn't mention it, however, until the lift has almost reached the visitor platform. Yet, it's not quite as scary as the Finnish author feared, for at least the lower section of the visitor area is surrounded by thick glass panes. From here, Haahtela can get a good look at the city.

That is his job right now: to look at Munich and its inhabitants and set down his impressions and thoughts in a blog. Haahtela is a so-called writer-in-residence. On the invitation of the Goethe-Institut, its Finnish sister organization FILI and literaturhaus.net, the writer is living a few days in Munich and visiting the Frankfurt Book Fair. Haahtela's stay will last two weeks, and more would not have been possible, he says, as he wouldn't be able to stand being away from his three- and five-year old children Vera and Joakim and longer.

This is Haahtela's first time in Munich – although the city has been well known to him as long as he can remember. On 10 September 1972, the Finnish runner Lasse Viren won the gold medal for 5,000 metres at the Olympic Games in Munich. In Finland that same day, Joel Haahtela was born. It is a chronological encounter that created a formative link in the mind of little Joel. "Lasse Viren was the hero of my childhood," says Haahtela. The "Flying Finn," as the German press called him, not only ran to the head of the 5,000-metre runners, but had also gained the gold medal in the 10,000-metre race even though he tripped during the run. "He just got up and kept running," says Haahtela. "Viren had sisu," he adds – and then has difficulty explaining this word precisely, which describes a characteristic Finnish trait that can only be approximated with words such as endurance, staying power, mental strength or grit.

Like in Grimm's fairy tales

"Where is the centre?" Haahtela turns his glance from the stadium and looks searchingly at the houses and greenery hazed in drizzling rain below. It ought to be over there, but the city's landmark Frauenkirche cannot be seen. What experiences has Haahtela had so far in Munich? Besides the observation that Munich's men's toilets apparently have an above-average number of urinals, which Haahtela mused on in his writer-in-residence blog, his search for the perfect jazz club needs to be continued even after his visit to the Unterfahrt.

Haahtela describes a coincidental encounter with goalkeeper legend Oliver Kahn as a small highlight of his stay in Munich. It, too, admits the author, happened in a toilet and not in a café, as the blog claims. But, he really did not want to write that after his descriptions of urinals. He doesn't want to specialize in toilets. Haahtela feels like Grimm's fairy tales in Munich, the city actually does live up to its own cliché. "I think the people in Finland and Germany probably have similar problems, but they have different ways of dealing with them." The Finnish writer-in-residence is an observer – not a judge.

This might have something to do with Haahtela's other occupation; he's not only a writer, but also a psychiatrist. Before he began writing, he was working in and around Helsinki as an analyst. He still takes care of his patients three days a week. Both professions, he says, are concerned with revealing a story and determining where a person stands. This is noticeable in his books. They are both fleet-footed and profound and reveal his respect for the characters he portrays.

A disappointing autograph session

Haahtela is very successful in his homeland and has already received a number of awards for his novels. His seventh novel will be published in January. He is still waiting for his international breakthrough, yet two of his works have been translated into German. In Der Schmetterlingssammler an unexpected inheritance leads the narrator to eastern Germany among other places in search of clues, in Elena an old man traces a young woman as well as his own life story. Haahtela's first novel Kaksi kertaa kadonnut from 1999 would also be interesting for German readers, for the language of the not-yet-translated work reveals the influence of a German author, the writer says – that of Herta Müller. The way that Müller, recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, uses language made a strong impression on him.

Haahtela had to learn, by the way, that adoration of his idols from afar is sometimes preferable to getting to know them personally. When he was about nine years old, the writer reports, he went to an autograph session with Lasse Viren. He especially drew a picture for it: Viren in a hero's pose, draped in his many Olympic medals. Yet, the runner did not react in the slightest to all the childish awe that was shown him. "In revenge, when Viren later ran for Finnish parliament, I didn't vote for him," jokes Haahtela. From 1999 until 2007 the athlete was a representative of Finland's conservative National Coalition Party. In Munich, Haahtela nonetheless wishes to follow in the footprints of his earlier hero. If possible, he'd like to run the track of the Olympic Stadium – and not just look down at it from above.