Meet our Guests
 Norman Ohler

Norman Ohler
Norman Ohler | © Joachim Gern

In January 2018 Norman Ohler participated in the „Lazy Sunday of LiteratureS“, a European literary event during the New Delhi World Book Fair. He also presented his Blitzed at the Apeejay Literature Festival in Kolkata, at the Hindu Lit For Life Festival in Chennai and at the Jaipur Literature Festival.


My first impression of India was…
The incredibly modern, professionally and beautifully designed arrivals hall at Delhi airport whereas Berlin does not even manage to accomplish their airport at all.
 
Things in New Delhi that remind me of my home town Berlin…
The winter chill! Its gruff residents! The lack of time!
 
Things that I noticed in India which are rather untypical in Germany...
Hitler’s Mein Kampf is being sold in pirated editions on the streets and is considered the most read “biography”. (So it is about time that people read Blitzed!)

A lasting memory of India...
My meeting with Arundhati Roy in a café tucked away in Old Delhi. And how I stepped on a dead rat with my custom made shoes.
 
 

Norman Ohler is a novelist and filmmaker. In 1995 he published the first hypertext-novel world-wide: Die Quotenmaschine, a detective story set in New York. In 2001, his acclaimed Berlin-novel Mitte was published, followed by a story about Johannesburg called Ponte City in 2002. In 2004, Ohler was writer-in-residence in Ramallah, and wrote his Ramallah-Blog. In 2008, Ohler co-wrote Palermo Shooting, a film by Wim Wenders. In 2015, Ohler’s first non-fiction book Der totale Rausch appeared. It was translated as Blitzed - Drugs in Nazi Germany by Allen Lane (Penguin Randomhouse). Blitzed is a New York Times bestseller, currently translated into 28 languages. In 2017, Ohler’s fourth novel appeared in Germany: Die Gleichung des Lebens.