Within the frames of a Nordic Book festival named „Into-the-wind“ I have now finished two readings and workshops in Berlin for young students and must say that I was very pleasantly surprised by how smart and open the educators in my home city turned out to be – Experiences in other parts of Germany such as Cologne had led me to believe that German teachers and librarians were conservative and far to easily shocked.
But that was not the case in the Humboldt-Bibliothek in Tegel and in the Ocelot bookstore in Mitte. Some of these guys had already read my cannibal tale or wanted more books translated. The kids were wonderfull and a great inspiration for me. The later class had ten different nationalities, an ukranian boy read out insults about Iceland (which I had ordered off course) in perfect German after having only lived in this country for a year. A history teacher insisted that I should carry on and write a children’s book about Hitler for five year olds (Out of dire need for such material). We also talked a bit about language and how things can take on different meanings in different languages. „Into-the-wind“ reminded me of the Icelandic phrase “Leysum vind”, as in this illustration of mine from “Papas Geheimnis.“