Conversations about Storytelling and Writing

The video of Slovak writer Michal Hvorecký tells the story of an extraordinary encounter in a library. Thomas Böhm, curator of “Time to listen”, picks up on the story, and explores the particularities of the encounter with the past featured in Hvorecký’s new novel “Tahiti Utopia”.

In her video “Missing”, Zaia Alexander shows birds of passage filmed against the backdrop of the cacophonous Baltic Sea, and recounts how in Germany too she comes across scenes reminiscent of Los Angeles, the mysterious, unsettling locale of her debut novel “Erdbebenwetter” (“Earthquake weather”). Zaia Alexander and Thomas Böhm, curator of “Time to listen”, talk about literature that transcends frontiers.

Antje Rávik Strubel reflects in her video on her dual role as a passionate listener and covert story-teller. With Thomas Böhm, curator of “Time to listen”, she talks about her new novel “Blaue Frau” (“Blue woman”), which tells the troubling story of a woman caught between the many dangerous pitfalls of contemporary Europe.

In his video the Irish writer Colm Tóibín recounts how during lockdown he dreamt his way into a famous house in California, and Thomas Böhm, curator of “Time to listen”, explores the role that this house plays in Tóibín’s new novel “The Magician”.