She is the daughter of Greek guest workers who ran a kiosk in the Hamburg working-class district of Harburg.
To this day, a colorful bag of liquorice and sour fries still makes Linda Zervakis laugh.
Why, she explains to SPIEGEL editor Tobias Becker in this episode of SPIEGEL Live.
He talks to her about her impressive career, how she, as a guest worker child from a modest background, became one of the faces of the most famous German news program.
Millions of people tune in when she speaks the "Tagesschau" at 8pm.
Your most attentive critic is her mother.
Linda Zervakis traveled to Greece with her in search of her roots.
Linda Zervakis describes the trip into the past with her mother in her new book "Etsikietsi".
Translated it means "so-so".
Zervakis relates this to her origins: "I'm a bit German, I'm a little Greek, so I'm 'etsikietsi'."
As a child, her nickname was "Zaziki".
But she knew how to defend herself with her "carrot attacks".
They were chewed roots that she fired from her mouth.
Interestingly, as a little girl, the swear word "tzaziki" didn't refer so much to her Greek origins, but more to her clothes: "Maybe I didn't look that Greek at all. I just looked like shit in general. I wasn't stylishly dressed, because I also had to wear my brother's clothes due to the fact that we didn't have that much money, combined with some Mickey Mouse sweaters that I had from the flea market. "
The podcast will appear during the bestseller book week at the same time as the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Because this is largely taking place digitally due to the corona pandemic, the SPIEGEL culture editorial team has invited exciting writers to the podcast studio for you.
For five days we will dedicate ourselves to special authors of this extraordinary literary autumn.
Curious?
Then just click on the play arrow at the beginning of the article and listen to the new episode of our podcast SPIEGEL Live - The Conversation.
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