Expat Author Interview with Claudia from Expatclic.com

Claudia from Expatclic.com

Claudia is the founder and coordinator of the website Expatclic.com. After having lived in Sudan, Angola, Guinee-Bissau, Congo Brazzaville, Honduras and Peru, she is presently enjoying a rich and interesting life in Jerusalem. Claudia has two children and speaks Italian, English, French, Spanish and German. 

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IMBO: Claudia, welcome to I Must Be Off! You are the curator of the web site Expatclic.com. How long have you been doing this, and what is its mission?

CLAUDIA: I created Expatclic.com with a French friend almost nine years ago, we launched it in October 2004. Our initial idea was to provide expat women all over the world with an international support platform that would guide them through their transitions from country to country with articles, information, forum discussions, contacts. We wanted to do this in four languages (Italian, English, French, Spanish), with an independent editorial team for each one. Things evolved, and today we still maintain the four languages on the website, but we have one big international team, and quite a number of external collaborators. While the original mission of helping expat women and their families through their transitions has not changed, we have introduced different tools in the course of time – like online courses, competitions, and other fun contests to put expat women in touch. 

IMBO: You've written lots of articles about the expat life. Do you think expats share some common personality traits? Do we all love adventure, or have we all just landed where we are by chance?

CLAUDIA: No, I don't think there are common personality traits originally. Many expats have a terribly difficult time in adjusting to different cultures, while others just jump into it with amazing easiness. What I believe happens with time when you live abroad is that you acquire certain traits, and these are the ones that form a bond within the global expat community worldwide. Living with other cultures opens your mind, teaches you how to change perspective quickly, makes you more flexible, aware and happy, and teaches you a lot about yourself and your home cultures. This "life capital" is acquired in a very spontaneous and almost unconscious way by expats, and becomes part of their personalities often without them realizing it. It's usually when they go back to their home country that they take stock of what the experience has done for them. But I am going far beyond the question, here:-) 

IMBO: That’s OK. Let’s go even further. I like the idea of life capital. I’m sure my life capital has increased since I’ve been in Germany. Learning to appreciate the German “Ordnung” was a great lesson to stick under my belt. Generally, interaction with other cultures helps us learn who we are ourselves. Do you agree with this? And what do you think are the most important lessons we can learn by interacting with other cultures?

CLAUDIA:  I totally agree. I've often been more surprised by my reaction to an unknown cultural fact than by the fact in itself…that made me wonder – “why am I becoming so angry? Why does this scare me so much?” and sent me immediately to my core feelings, to my deepest values… Moving in different cultures really means a global learning: you learn a lot about new lifestyles, codes and values, but also about yourself, about things you had always taken for granted and never analysed.

The most important lessons? Humbleness, I would say, because by realizing that your way of thinking and considering life is not the only one, you also start wondering why you always thought that was the only right way… And empathy. Once you let other ways of life “contaminate” you, your level of empathy towards other human beings increases.

IMBO: Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we were all a bit humbler and a bit more empathetic? I’ve certainly grown in these respects over the last 18 years -- though I have a long way to go. I’m often frustrated by the preconceptions of others, especially when people are outspoken and sarcastically critical about my home country. I find myself becoming defensive though I haven’t lived there (the US) in almost two decades. Do you have similar feelings about Italy? Is Italy still home?

Milano

CLAUDIA: Very interesting question. Yes, I have very similar feelings about Italy, and I always jump up to defend my country from stereotypes (as you can imagine, I have heard mafia, pizza and spaghetti an endless number of times in my life abroad), though recently it’s becoming less and less defendable. I think Italy is still home. Not in a physical sense, though we have a charming little house in Tuscany where we go every summer, and that really gives me feelings that are very close to “feeling home”. It’s mostly in the sense of belonging to what is good in the Italian culture, and to the good values I grew up with in Milan, where I was born, studied, and worked until age 27. Opening my doors, wherever I happen to live in the world, helping people, caring about humanity, enjoying good food and company -- these are all things that my Italian background contributed to enhancing in me, and I am proud of it. The other fantastic thing is that wherever we Italians go, we are always loved and welcome – everybody on earth seems to love and appreciate Italy, and this, I must admit, is a wonderful feeling.

"Once you let other ways of life 'contaminate' you, your level of empathy towards other human beings increases."

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IMBO: You live in Jerusalem now. Do you live directly in the city? I was there a couple of years ago and found it very crowded and hot. What do you love about Jerusalem?

Jerusalem

CLAUDIA: It would be easier to tell you what I don’t love…I live in the city, yes, south of the Old City and on the way to Bethlehem. Jerusalem is the most amazing place I ever happened to live. It’s a throbbing melting pot of cultures, languages, history, injustice, tension, foolishness…especially foolishness… I have never seen such crazy human manifestations as here. Sometimes it feels like being in a movie. Anyway, the city is absolutely delightful from an architectural point of view, and I consider myself lucky to live here today; because the rhythm of change is so fast, in five years this will be a different city altogether. The other totally fascinating factor of Jerusalem is its schizophrenic character. From where I live, at the first traffic light I meet, if I turn right I find myself into the Palestinian occupied area of the city, if I turn left I end up in the Israeli-Jewish side of town, which has a totally different atmosphere, let alone a different language. This makes the whole experience even more fascinating (and somehow hard) because not only do you have to deal with one different culture from yours, but with two, minding also the relationship between the two, which is complex. Anyway, I have not yet met an expat soul that has not loved living here.

The Separation Barrier. (Photo by IMBO)

IMBO: Wow, I sort of know where you live! I know that sounds weird, but I remember the ride into Bethlehem vividly. I snapped a picture of the barrier between the two sides. Is there an organised expat community in Jerusalem. I assume there is. What’s it like?

CLAUDIA: The expat community in Jerusalem is made up 99% by humanitarian organizations and journalists (and religious expats, but they sort of stay to themselves). It is a very specific community, but to explain its features I would have to dive into the Israeli occupation problem, and I know this is very delicate. Anyway, it is pretty organized and meets quite regularly in precise places and around specific activities. Jerusalem is not big, international schools are just a few, so if you are dynamic, you end up knowing a lot of people. Besides, Israelis dislike foreigners – or better, the work foreigners do here – and this creates a sort of camaraderie amongst expats.

IMBO: You’re hosting a contest with big prize money at Expatclic.com. For women. I have a lot of women readers who love to travel and who love to write. Tell us more about the contest.

CLAUDIA: The idea of the contest came from a friend of Expatclic, a lady who had written for us a long time ago, and that came back asking to organize a contest in the memory of her aunt, Maria Pia Forte, who died two years ago, and who had always been an avid traveler, journalist, writer. We were flattered and thrilled at the idea, which is also a big manifestation of trust in Expatclic. Maria Donata, the niece of Maria Pia, has indeed decided to put very interesting prizes on the three categories, which are Stories and Articles, Poems and Photography. The contest celebrates the memory of Maria Pia by inviting women to submit fiction, non fiction, articles, poems or photography on the themes that marked her life: travels, life abroad, meeting cultures and the importance of writing. It is open to all women living abroad (or who lived abroad in the past) and promises to be very participated and exciting! Reception of entries will close on 31st July, and the winners, one per category, will be announced at the beginning of October, on Expatclic’s birthday.  

IMBO: This is exciting. And the prize money is excellent. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of entries. Claudia, I always ask the interviewee to suggest another expat author to my readers. Who would you like us to know about, and what’s special about this expat author?

CLAUDIA: There are actually two women that come to mind. One is Eva Hoffman, a Polish author who moved to Canada when she was 13, and she is still living there to this day. Her book Lost in Translation – life in a new language is absolutely one of my favourite, and a must for all those who want to go deeper into the dynamics of being uprooted and having to make a new life from scratch in an unknown environment. Eva Hoffman is unique in her depth, humanity and accuracy. I love that book and still use it when working with cross-cultural dynamics. The other woman is Jean Calder, an amazing creature, born in Australia, and relocated in Lebanon first, then Egypt and finally to Gaza, where she still lives. Besides her invaluable work for disabled refugees, Jean adopted three disabled Palestinian children (one unfortunately died recently) and eventually relocated to Palestine, which is her children’s land. She wrote a wonderful book, Where theroad leads, that I warmly recommend: it is an amazing account of what has happened in this tormented region in the last five decades, and of the story of a woman that stops in front of nothing to continue her work in search of justice, dignity and human love.

IMBO: What courageous people these are. Thank you for sharing their work with us, Claudia. And thank you for stopping by I Must Be Off! and sharing part of your own story. 

CLAUDIA: Thank you Christopher for the space you give me. I believe that sharing our life experiences abroad enhances the richness of meeting people and cultures, and your blog is certainly a step forward in this direction. Keep up the good work! 

IMBO: Thank you, Claudia!

I must be off,
Christopher 

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Christopher Allen is the author of Conversations with S. Teri O'Type (a Satire), an episodic adult cartoon about a man struggling with expectations--available from Amazon Anything. 

Travel Theme Challenge -- Beaches

Another great excuse to get these photos up and out to the readers of I Must Be Off! A Travel Theme Photo challenge from Where's My Backpack? The irony of these photos is that I'm not a beach person. I can lie on a beach for about three seconds before I'm bored out of my skull and thinking only of how melanoma is growing, spidering all over my body. The other irony, considering my aversion to beaches, is that I have hundreds more of these photos. I've chosen to share thirteen with you.

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On the island of Florianopolis in Brazil. We had a nice walk to this beach and refreshed ourselves at the restaurant that overlooks it. This deserted stand was too cool not to photograph.

I don't have a great relationship with Nice. In fact, if you've kept up with I Must Be Off! you probably know that I've decided I can do without the Côte d'Azur for quite a long time. These chairs can stay empty, and they should stay empty, until Nice figures out a way to make this once-beautiful city safer and more tourist-friendly. Right now Nice is not nice.

OK, I like to take pictures of empty chair at beaches. This is Crete, off-season. It's not cold; there just aren't any people here. No idea why not. This place is nice. 

I've forgotten where this was taken. But it doesn't matter. Love is love wherever you find it. And when I find it, sometimes I snap a picture. I hope these people don't mind.

Ibiza. This island was truly a surprise. I was prepared for a party island overrun by 18-year-olds. They were there of course, but there were also incredibly beautiful beaches and coves. Ibiza is always worth a visit.  

 The legendary "Strandkorb" from the Baltic sea. I have to say they don't look very comfortable, but they are necessary here where the wind picks up the sand and throws it in your face like a bully.

Madeira. A deserted or maybe even abandoned project to revitalize this beach. It looked like the community had been giving it a great shot when the financial crisis hit?

Matt Potter, turn your head away from this one. This is the beach in Acapulco from our hotel room on the 24th floor. That railing in the lower righthand corner only came up to my waist, and I'm really not that tall. We had to put furniture in front of the balcony door at night. I walk in my sleep.

Looking down at the craggy shore below Anacapri on the island of Capri just off the coast of Naples, Italy. 

One of my most favoritest photos of all time. I think these coconuts look like they're singing. It's like a coconut trio on Kuta Beach, Bali. 

The sun setting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Great memories of sitting at the beach (yes, I did), eating freshly made guacamole and tortilla chips and drinking lots and lots of margaritas. 

Again, the island of Florianopolis in Brazil. I loved the yellow against the blue sky. Next to us, there was a child building sand castles by dribbling wet sand on ever-growing towers. It was a sight, but I never felt comfortable enough to take a photo. 

The sun setting over Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I went to the beach alone to get this picture on the last day of our stay because I had to have this picture. I got several, none of them very good.

I must be off,
Christopher

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Christopher Allen is the author of Conversations wtih S. Teri O'Type (a Satire), an episodic adult cartoon about a man struggling with expectations, available from Amazon Anything.

Werder's Baumblütenfest

Together Against Nazis

At the weekend we attended the second largest Volksfest in Germany, the largest being Oktoberfest of course. When I told my German students here in Munich that I went to the Baumblütenfest in Werder, they all looked at me and said, "Where? The what?"  Apparently, the festival is not so well known south of Berlin, and the organizers, I've been told, have good reason to keep it smallish.

Before heading off to the town where it's held each year at the beginning of May, I couldn't even spell the name of the town. Verda? Werde? Werder? The third one is right. Werder / Havel is about a thirty-minute train ride outside Berlin. When you get out of the train, the place looks like any other small train stop. There's graffiti everywhere and police. Wait, police? Yes, and lots of them. And crowds of motly-looking people. Lots of them.

The festival--called the Baumblütenfest (festival of the tree blossoms, although the English doesn't have a ring to it)--began quietly in 1879 with respectable attendance from the citizens of Berlin. The residents and fruit farmers of the village invited people to enjoy fruit wine and cake in their gardens and orchards--and of course they made a little money doing so.

During the years that Werder was part of the GDR, the festival was essentially forbidden. The residents were not allowed to let people into their gardens, and the sale of fruit wine was drastically restricted.

The Rhubarb Wine that didn't taste like Rhubarb

In 1989, though, things changed. A lot changed. A wall in Berlin came down and gardens in Werder opened back up. Today more than 500,000 people visit the town to take in the beauty of the blooming trees--and to drink copious amounts of the "wine"--which tastes a lot like, well, fruit juice--made from their fruit. Cherry wine, apple wine, peach wine, pear wine, but also rhubarb wine, black currant wine and strawberry wine. There was also dandelion wine, which tasted like a white wine that had been open for six months. It was truly awful. The wines vary greatly in quality. I had two glasses of rhubarb wine, each from different stands, and they tasted nothing alike. The second one actually tasted a little like rhubarb. The best wine I had all day was a black currant wine that tasted a lot like pomegranate juice. Who knows if it was alcoholic at all. It tasted like it had a lot of vitamin C. That's a good thing. Really. Over a period of five hours I had six or seven glasses of this "wine" but never felt drunk.

I can imagine that the Baumblütenfest of Werder was a very different place 100 years ago: a more reserved place, a more pleasant place. Today, the festival is overrun with rowdy young people, all with their personal bottle of fruit wine, which they fill up often. Groups of police officers stand around to make the streets look safer, but they only make me feel as if I need their protection; and when I look at some of the people attending this festival, I think these police officers are necessary. Of course the majority of these packs of youths are harmless, but there are angry types dressed in black with tattoos that indicate they hate you and would really like to hurt you once they've consumed copious amounts of fruit wine--although can a guy who drinks cherry wine really hurt anyone??

Strawberry Wine

As we are sitting in someone's garden and drinking strawberry wine, the discussion turns to Neo-Nazis and the recent demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. A few of the people at the table who were involved in the counter-demonstrations told us about how difficult it was to demonstrate against the Neo-Nazis. In Germany you have to have a permit to demonstrate, so many of the people who showed up to demonstrate against the Neo-Nazis were turned away because no counter-demonstration had been registered. The only way the counter-demonstrators were allowed beyond the barriers was for them to say that they were part of the Neo-Nazi demonstration. I imagine that would be hard to say. It would be hard for me to lie about something like this.

A private garden at the Werder Baumblütenfest. Open to the public.

A private garden at the Werder Baumblütenfest.

The orchards open up for the people to picnic and drink the fruit wine.

The orchards open to the public during the Werder Baumblütenfest.

With the NSU trial heating up in Munich and the recent news of the Jobbik party in Hungary, the topic of Neo-Nazism is everywhere right now. The Jobbik party in Hungary received 17% of the vote, and their platform is based on anti-semitism. This is hard to believe and saddening. And it is especially ironic that beautiful festivals like the Werder Baumblütenfest are threatened by this ideology of hate.

I must be off,
Christopher

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Christopher Allen is the author of Conversations with S. Teri O'Type (a Satire), an episodic adult cartoon about a man struggling with expectations. Available from Amazon Anything. .

Expat Author Interview with Claire King

Author Claire King

Claire King has lived in rural France for the last 11 years, where she leads a patchwork sort of life involving parenting, writing, earning money in brief stints away from home as an independent facilitator and running their two gîtes. Her first novel, The Night Rainbow, came out this spring from Bloomsbury. She is busy editing the second one, which is eagerly awaited, at least by her agent and publisher. There may also be a short story collection in the offing...

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IMBO: Claire, welcome to I Must Be Off! How long have you lived in France? And what surprised you most about the country? Is this your first experience with the expatriate life?

KING: Thank you for having me! No, I've been an expat before. I spent 3 years in the late '90s living in Kiev, Ukraine just after the country gained independence. It was a wonderful humbling and transformative time for me. Expat life there was very different, because there were very few of us, and there was a gulf between our means and those of the local people. As an expat in southern France (I have been here eleven years now) I am less vividly 'different' and in fact it's this that amplifies my experience as a foreigner here.

IMBO: Oh, wow. First things first: Kiev! Did you learn the language while living there? What was life like there? How did this experience change you?

KING: I learned Russian in Kiev. At the time it was the most widely spoken language in Ukraine, at least in the central, eastern and southern parts of the country. When I was working in Lviv in the west (I travelled around a lot) it was a struggle, as not only was English not spoken but nor, resolutely, was Russian.

Kiev, Ukraine

I picked Russian up quite quickly, it’s what’s known as ‘immersion’ I believe. For any foreigner there in the '90s who wanted to live any kind of normal life – buying food at the market, meeting and conversing with people beyond the narrow scope of the ‘western’ business community – there was no choice but to tackle the language.

Life in Ukraine was fantastic. At that time it was the raw edge of a society ripped open. It was hopeful and shocked and edgy and uncertain and at the same time there was a real emphasis on the simple things in life. Summers were hot, and we promenaded on the boulevards, swam in the Dnipro river and cooked shashlyk on spits. Winters were long, snowy and arctic. We had parties and drank vodka and went to the ballet.

I was 24 when I went to Kiev, and pretty naïve I suppose. It was the first time I had really understood another culture and experienced their preoccupations and problems first hand. I think I left a more empathetic and compassionate person, but also stronger in myself, having had to deal with things like the militia, the mafia and so on.

I made some strong and long lasting friendships while I was there, and I wrote a lot. I had (still have) a lot to say about Ukraine.

"[Kiev in the '90s] was the raw edge of a society ripped open."

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IMBO: Can you share something you wrote during your time in Kiev? Maybe something online?

KING:  There’s nothing online from that time, it was so long ago… A short story I wrote there ‘Wine at Breakfast’ was shortlisted in the Bristol Short Story Prize volume 3 (2010) which is available in the anthology (paper or e) either from the Bristol Prize website or Amazon. There are some absolutely cracking short stories in that anthology, from writers like Valerie O’Riordan, Jonathan Pinnock and Kate Brown amongst others.

Otherwise, I’ve been working on my own short story collection which will draw on that time and I’ll be ready to talk about it soon, at which point I might drop a few tasters onto Fictionaut. 

Mexborough

IMBO: Tell us about where you grew up.

KING: I grew up in a small, poor industrial town in Northern England. It was proud, suspicious of outsiders, family oriented and quite depressed. Although I feel bad saying this, because the people I grew up with we're and still are wonderful, hard working, humorous people, I honestly couldn't wait to leave, and I'm never going back.

IMBO: I think many expats know what you mean. I would find it incredibly difficult to go back. I’ve been away so long that I have no idea what colour my roots are. But what about France? Is this home now, or could you pick up and move?

KING: Home is where the heart is. I love living where we do in the Pyrénées, but don’t feel anchored to France particularly. I feel anchored to my family and my friends and geographically this is quite a challenge as beyond my immediate family everyone is very dispersed.

My husband, daughters and I talk often about a time if/when we move somewhere else, and we don’t really know where that would be. I can’t imagine it would be further from our parents (who live in North Yorkshire and on a Scottish Island)…but it could be elsewhere in Europe or back in the UK, depending on what the reason might be for a move (professional, family led etc). We don’t know where life will lead us, so it’s nice to keep an open mind.

IMBO: And your first experience, your first struggle, with literature?

KING: I read books upside down quite happily for years. No one knew I was reading, they thought I was pretending. The first word anyone discovered I couldn't read was 'sausages'. I tried to read Dickens aged 11 and was put off for life, I remember being blown away by the war poetry of Sassoon, Owen and Brooke. Gerard Manley Hopkins broke my heart.

IMBO: Did you really read upside down? In second grade, a teacher punished me once for making up the story instead of reading it as I flipped through the pages. She told my mother I couldn’t read. I just thought the story as written was kind of dull.

KING: I did. I have an older brother and was envious that he got to read first, so I was the annoying younger sister, standing in front of him and peering over his books, reading the text upside down. I don’t think your brain cares particularly which way up the letters are. Funny story about your teacher. My first teacher refused to believe I was reading, she thought I’d memorised all the stories! So she sent to the next class up for ‘fresh books’ to test me with. Nuts.

IMBO: I can just see little Claire with her arms folded, saying “Bring them on!” Your debut novel, The Night Rainbow (which has just come out in the US!), is set in the south of France. The narrator and her mother are expats themselves. Do you sometimes feel the same way this mother feels about being foreign?

KING: I’ve never felt as peripheral to a community as the mother does in The Night Rainbow, but I often feel that my level of competence in foreign languages creates a gulf between me and others which I cannot cross. It’s really hard to have an intimate relationship with someone when you struggle to express your feelings and to understand the nuances of what the other person is trying to say. And you need to put a lot of time and energy into crossing that gulf. In Ukraine I had much more time to break down the barriers. In France it’s a real frustration.

IMBO: Most of my students these days are French, and we’ve made a joke of my having to learn at least one new French word during every class. I’m worthless. My French is near catastrophic. I think if I had to immerse myself in it, I would drown within minutes.

KING: Would you like a word for today? How about croustillant, which literally translated means crunchy, but you can use it to describe a gossipy, saucy story ‘une histoire bien croustillant’.

IMBO: Merci! I’ll have a go at pronouncing it today in class—which is always so entertaining for my students. OK, back to your book: The setting of the story is Southern France in a rural community. Do you live in this setting yourself? And do you live this idyll of going to the open markets, buying fresh vegetables and cheese, getting fresh baguettes delivered to your door like in the book?

Southern France. The Low Meadow from The Night Rainbow?

KING: Someone at my publishers asked if, as part of a prize being offered, I could do a ‘Night Rainbow tour’ where we would visit the peach orchards, the meadow down by the stream, Windy Hill overlooking the wind turbines etc. Unfortunately the tour doesn’t exist because the landscape around Pea’s house, and the house itself, is fictional. But of course it is inspired by places that I’m familiar with. Most of the ‘macro’ location is based on the coastal area around Fitou, just north of Perpignan, where you have the beautiful étangs full of flamingos and the wind-blown trees and the garrigue. I pass through that area regularly on the train and I just love its wild Mediterranean beauty. The ‘micro’ locations like the low meadow and parts of Windy Hill are inspired by places closer to home (inland, at the foothills of the Pyrénees) that I know much more intimately – the geography, the nature and so on – because Pea also needed to be intimate with them.

Marche Prades

Also Marche Prades

All that being said, we do live in a rural community and yes, there’s a lady who brings fresh baguettes to the village: we don’t have a bakers within walking distance, and I believe it’s the law in France that everyone must have access to fresh bread, so if there’s no bakers nearby a delivery service is organised by the local mairie or town council. We absolutely do shop in the open markets. They are every Tuesday and Saturday mornings in our local market town, but there is one every day in the surrounding area. It’s one of my favourite parts of living here -  the butcher and the greengrocer who know us by name, the piles of seasonal fruits and vegetables, tourist watching…such a pleasure!

"I believe it’s the law in France that everyone must have access to fresh bread . . ."

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IMBO: The fresh bread notwithstanding, what about the not-so-pleasant aspects of being an expat in a small community? Have you ever felt as alone as Maman in The Night Rainbow?

KING: I have, but not in the context of being an expat. As an expat you can usually find someone else who is physically displaced with whom to identify. But when the displacement comes from within, that’s when you feel most alone.

IMBO: I get that, and I’ve often felt this sort of displacement. In fact, I felt it more when I was living in the US than now. Is there an excerpt of The Night Rainbow available somewhere on the internet that we could read?

KING: Here is a link to the first chapter. If this one doesn't work, use THIS ONE.

IMBO: Thank you! Now, I always ask the author to recommend another expat writer to my readers. Who would you suggest we read and what do you love about this author?

KING: You’ve already met some of my favourites, I guess we move in the same virtual circles – Kate Brown, for example, Michelle Elvy, Tania Hershman and Marcus Speh. So I’m going to introduce you to Peggy Riley, an American writer living in the UK.

I met Peggy on a writing retreat while she was working on her debut Amity & Sorrow. What impressed me most was firstly what a warm and generous person she is, and secondly her utter discipline in and dedication to her writing. I get the feeling that just by being around her some of that might rub off on me (my writing processes leave a lot to be desired).

  

I wasn’t at all surprised when Peggy landed a fabulous publishing deal and - now Amity and Sorrow is published I’m similarly unsurprised by the wonderful critical reception it’s enjoying.

IMBO: Thank you, Claire. I'll be sure to check out Amity and Sorrow (Read Kate Brown's review of the book HERE). It was great getting to know more about your expat experiences. What a surprise Kiev was. I wish you all the best, Claire, with The Night Rainbow and with all your future projects.

KING: It was lovely chatting with you! Thank you for having me.

I must be off,

Christopher

The Night Rainbow can be found in all good bookshops and on the web HERE. Read Christopher Allen’s review of the novel HERE. Read what people are saying about The Night Rainbow at Goodreads HERE.

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Christopher Allen is the author of Conversations with S. Teri O'Type, an episodic adult cartoon about a man struggling with expectations. Available on Amazon Anything. 

Bavaria's Fraueninsel

A view of the Alps from Frauenchiemsee

There's a lake in Bavaria that's called the Bavarian Mediterranean Sea or das Bayerische Mittelmeer in German. We go there at least once a year. It's a popular destination for a day trip, and its real name is Chiemsee of course. I have no idea how it gained its comparison to the Mediterranean Sea. It's nowhere near as big as the Med. Maybe it's a mini-Med? It has islands and a few beaches but mostly promenades and traditional Bavarian houses with the Alps as a backdrop.

The lake is famous for a few reasons, but the two best known are the castle built by Bavaria's crazy King Ludwig II on the island Herrenchiemsee and the Fraueninsel, whose name is actually Frauenchiemsee but everyone in Bavaria calls the island die Fraueninsel.

I've lived in Bavaria so long that I couldn't really say whether I'd been to the Fraueninsel before our recent visit. I was sure I had been there, but as we walked around the island I had the odd feeling that I had never been here before. It's a beautiful, tiny island. It's the smallest community in Bavaria. The walk around it is about one kilometer. You can do it in about 30 minutes, but you should take it slowly. The restaurants and the shops on the Fraueninsel have been there for years and years, some for centuries. If you like smoked fish, this is your place. The island is also famous for pottery.

The monastery on the island has a long, interesting history. Founded in 782, it was most active from the 11th to the 15th century. Destroyed of course, as almost everything is, and then rebuilt in the 18th century, it's now run by around 30 nuns--although I saw only one.  And I should thank her for not chewing me out for taking the picture in the church (below). I really didn't see the sign telling me not to.

Wikipedia indicates that the government of the Fraueninsel is a theocracy. A sovereign municipality--the smallest in Bavaria, which makes me wonder how many "municipalities" there are in Bavaria. The island of course is part of the German social democratic system, but also governed independently.

The people on the island are Germans. The children play soccer under and around you. They ignore the tourists basically. I wonder what it would be like to grow up in such a small community that attracts so many tourists each year. Do the children feel like celebrities or goldfish? Or celebrity goldfish?

Like Phi Phi Island in Thailand and Mackinac Island in Michigan, Fruaenchiemsee is a car-free zone. There is hardly room on this island for cars anyway. If there weren't thousands and thousands of tourists scuttling about here, it would probably be the most peaceful place on earth.

Frauenchiemsee with the Alps in the background

Spring is probably not the best time to visit Chiemsee. The wind on the boat is biting, but as the sun comes out and warms us up, it's easier to take pictures. We usually go in summer when a chilly breeze is more welcome. If you're in Bavaria, a day trip to Chiemsee is a day well spent. A round trip on the boat that takes you to most places on the lake will cost around 9 euros.

I must be off,
Christopher

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Christopher Allen is the author of Conversations with S. Teri O'Type (a Satire), an episodic adult cartoon about a man struggling with expectations.

Expat Author Interview with Marcus Speh

Marcus Speh Birkenkrahe
Image by Taffimai Metallumai

Marcus Speh Birkenkrahe's debut short fiction collection Thank you for Your Sperm is out now from MadHat Press! His short fiction, published widely both in print and online magazines, has been nominated and shortlisted for various awards and prizes. In 2013 his debut novel will be published by Folded Word Press. Marcus--who describes himself as "a particle physicist, professor, web head, father, former fencer and paratrooper, avatar, founder of the legendary Kaffe in Katmandu, book nut, storyteller and active member of several literary communities, most notably Fictionaut--lives in Berlin with his American wife, the artist Carlye Birkenkrahe, and their daughter Taffimai Metallumai.


IMBO: Welcome to I Must Be Off!, Marcus! Finally! Let’s talk about the expat in you. How long did you live in London and then Italy and then New Zealand? And what took you to these places?

Speh: Thanks. What shall I call you? IMBO? MBO? Sounds like Management Buy-Out. But I’m too old to worry about acronyms, and too ADD to stay with my own thoughts for too long. You ask so many questions! Let me answer them quickly to get the so-called facts out of the way: first I lived in Italy for four years (rather, I had an apartment in Munich, Germany and in Trieste, Italy, and commuted between the two); then I lived in London with my family for nine years; lastly, we moved to New Zealand where we stayed for one year. I notice that you didn’t mention LOVE in the English question: a mistake? Or do you actually believe German is the more romantic idiom? About the reasons for those moves: on the surface, I followed love to two of these places (Italy, UK; and earlier, Argentina), women were my visible motif. But deeper than that I used to be a nomadic character: even as a student, I made sure I’d leave Germany every year for a few months at least; even the Netherlands seemed more exotic and promising than boring old home. I’m still a little like that though I don’t like traveling much anymore, at least not without my family. Only lately I feel more settled and I’ve taken my eye off the travel-ball because writing has become such an important force in my life that everything else, or almost everything else, is subordinate to it. But most of our family live in the US, so we’ll still burn plenty of miles.

IMBO: Then let’s get right to your writing. Your stories seem to flow from an unbound imagination. Have you really stopped traveling? Aren’t you now probing and plumbing and mining the depths of Marcus Speh?  

Speh: I’m not sure about that traveling thing. I’ve resisted traveling to a large extent over the past decade apart from trips to our US family, but traveling is a wonderful way to recharge those batteries of imagination, isn’t it. On the other hand, there’re these depths: and indeed, I’ve found that it is difficult to pursue anything deep and possibly painful, too, while distracting yourself with traveling. Travel costs so much energy! It’s dispersive rather than focusing. It precipitates change. It can be quite purging, too. But as you say, probing/plumbing/mining is what I’m trying more of these days. I find that the long form (anything upwards of 20,000 words) requires a different depth of attention and focus than the short form, which I’ve done a lot of these last few years. That “unbound imagination” sometimes seems to stand in my way: it needs to be tamed and channeled to keep the water in the riverbed. If you want to reach the ocean, that is, and I do.

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"Returning to my homeland after such a long absence felt a little like coming back to a story rather than to my own past. It still feels like that at times."

IMBO: Did you begin writing in English when you lived in London, or did you start before? Is there a different Marcus Speh Birkenkrahe when you write in German? Do different languages open different doors?

Marcus Speh Birkenkrahe

Speh: I believe I began to write in English when I went to school in London in the late 1970s; much later, again in London, I wrote 300 English poems in one year, but they were no good. I stopped writing German in New Zealand in 2002. Both when I speak and when I write, I feel (and, I think, sound and read) like a different person. You can hear this in my podcasts — here is an example — but I’m not sure how to describe the difference. I’m more playful in English and much less inhibited, not just off but also on the page. And I’m not just talking about the disregard for proper grammar…yes, different languages do open different doors in one’s mind. Somerset Maugham says «the French language tends to rhetoric, as the English to imagery», and German writing, I think, lends itself more easily to the expression of ideas: philosophy is both our bane and our burden. Whatever the true correspondence, each language resonates more strongly with another aspect of inner/outer reality, and I do feel that. I relate well to images, perhaps that’s why I write in English. Though the more immediate reason is that my American wife is my first muse and my first reader. But I’m (always and forever) seriously thinking about writing in German, and the energy is growing. In the last issue of Frieze, Vincenzo Latronico wrote compellingly about English as a literary Lingua Franca—this really is the language I wield, not the English you speak or write (as a native speaker). There probably hasn’t been a time in history when languages and literatures influenced each other so deeply and changed so quickly.

IMBO: Your English voice is pure gold. I’ve told you this so many times, but I’ll say it again. Gold. There. Is this really a different person, though? Aren’t we, at least in some way, the characters we create in, from and of ourselves?

Marcus Birkenkrahe in Second Life

Speh: Thank you! I’ve been asked to do voice work and I’d like to, in another life. I think identity is a true paradox. I’ve just begun some research work in the direction of “online identities”. This was originally motivated by my activity in 3D virtual worlds like “Second Life”, but I realised then my proclivity towards pseudonyms and identity changes, which are so much easier to facilitate online than in real life, with all those processes attached to fixing you in lifelong patterns both ancestral and accidental, both endogenic and exogenic. Without these processes of fixation, we wouldn’t know who we are—we might wake up as cockroaches any time; but it also engenders limitations, and I’ve never much liked limitations of any kind, I’m a tad ashamed to say. (That shame may be a remnant of my German personality.) This creation of characters off and on the page serves us well to overcome inbuilt and adopted limitations—it’s one of the great perks of being a writer, I think. And yes, we are all these people we imagine and project. I've just read a rather bitchy review of Dostoyevsky’s life and work by Somerset Maugham, who I reckon was a little scared by the depth of Dostoyevsky, but he demonstrates beautifully how most of the characters created by Dostoyevsky were actually him. It doesn’t destroy the pleasure of reading the novels at all. It made me wonder if there’s another way — put differently, if any writer can write convincingly about characters that don’t live inside him.  

Finnegan Flawnt

IMBO: What’s it like to return? Have the characters within you changed since coming home? Is Germany home?

Speh: I feel a little exiled, as if I’ve never really returned, which is ridiculous since for all practical purposes I’m German and live a thoroughly German life except that I don’t speak German with my loved ones—I can’t even get my bilingual daughter to speak German with me. Returning to Germany ten years ago after a decade abroad was eerie. I had difficulties with all the usual issues foreigners struggle with, too: the endless complaining at a super-high level of sustenance; the lack of expression on German faces; the general sence of obedience mixed with irritability. But I was also happy to be home in some sense hard to define: Germany feels safe, solid and sensible; public transport is paradise. Once I enjoyed traveling to Weimar and sitting in Goethe’s house in a quiet corner while the guided tour noisily moved onward: there was a sense of the forbidden which I felt Goethe would have approved of. I liked going to London, Paris and Rome for the weekend. On a consulting job in Vienna I visited the Freud museum located in his former practice rooms, and I did group work in the festival room of Palais Lobkovitz where Beethoven’s Eroica symphony was first performed. The past seems littered with such flash memories: I expect over time they’ll turn into fiction just as everything turns into fiction eventually. Returning to my homeland after such a long absence felt a little like coming back to a story rather than to my own past. It still feels like that at times.

IMBO: It's always fascinating to hear you talk about your writing, Marcus. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I'm looking forward to breakfast again in Berlin--next time it's on me. 

I must be off,

Christopher

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Cover art by Carlye Birkenkrahe

Marcus Speh Birkenkrahe's first collection of short fiction, Thank You for Your Sperm, is available now. Read more about that HERE. 

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Christopher Allen is the author of the absurdist satire Conversations with S. Teri O'Type.