Helga Schubert: 'There's got to be distance between the writer and their story'
As the world lurches into 2025 we launch into another series of Fictionable podcasts. We'll be hearing from Joanna Kavenna, Rachida Lamrabet, Ben Sorgiovanni and Julian George over the next few weeks, but we start with Helga Schubert and her short story On Getting Up, translated by Aaron Sayne and Lillian M Banks.
Banks turns interpreter as Schubert explains how this story was awakened by an appearance on a panel discussing one of German literature's most prestigious awards, the Ingeborg Bachmann prize.
"The joke is," Schubert says, "the only reason I was even selected as a jury member was…
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