SPIEGEL: Ms. Bogdan, is the second novel really the most difficult?
Bogdan : I've heard that for three years now. Since "Laufen" is finished, I hear: No, you still get the second novel somehow, really difficult is only the third. Since then, I just shut my ears.
SPIEGEL: Why did you decide to write a book about mourning after a satire?
Bogdan: One of the aspects that I have always appreciated about translating is the fact that with every new book something new and different comes. And I do not want to go into any drawer as a writer, no matter what. Life is not always funny, sadness is part of it.
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Isabel Bogdan
Running: Roman
Publishing company:
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Pages:
208
Price:
EUR 20,00
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SPIEGEL: And running. The leitmotif of your novel. What is this topic doing with the language rhythm?
Bogdan : It takes over him automatically. When you run yourself and think while writing your thoughts while running, you automatically get into this rhythmic, fast, with many commas and a few points. My runner is completely untrained in the beginning, because the rhythm is still pretty breathless; In the course of the novel, it becomes fitter and more relaxed, and this is reflected in the language rhythm.
SPIEGEL: What was there: the idea of working through literature or the desire to write about grief?
Bogdan: At first, I had just that running sound, the sound of a woman who is at the end of her powers. When I thought about what crisis situation I was plunging into, an acquaintance of mine took his own life, and I could not stop thinking about what that would do to his wife and children.
SPIEGEL: How did you research these topics, grief, suicide?
Bogdan: I talked to people who had similar experiences. And with a friendly psychotherapist, who has explained a lot about depression and the therapeutic handling of it, but also a lot about my literary figure.
SPIEGEL: So is the idea that your main character will come back to life through running?
Bogdan: I'm convinced that grief is always physical work. How likely any strong emotion. And that it is good to give an outlet to this physical work, which can not be influenced at all, and which tends to be directed inwards, by requiring the body to exercise and, as it were, to give this work outwards.
SPIEGEL: Does it make more fun to write a funny book than a book about a partner's suicide?
Bogdan: Writing is no joy at all, it's hell. To have written something, however, is great. Of course, a funny book is more fun. In addition, I was innocent at first. I tried it, nobody expected anything from me. That was different now, and of course that also puts pressure.
SPIEGEL: How did your publisher feel that you had reinvented yourself after the success of your Romandebüts?
Bogdan: I think at the beginning they just swallowed. But then they fully supported me and did not question my decision, but encouraged and encouraged me.
SPIEGEL: You are considered the darling of the German book trade. What do the booksellers say about your topic change?
Bogdan: I keep hearing that they find it courageous. And right. I did not feel so brave myself - to write something completely different is, of course, a decision that you make very consciously, but I still think it's right. And I also hear that from the bookstore.
SPIEGEL: What are you writing, a thriller?
Bogdan: I translate the next Jane Gardam.