Lina Wolff: The Granta Podcast Ep. 70

Granta speaks to Lina Wolff, author of the story collection 'Många människor dör som du' ('Many Pepole Die Like You') and the novel 'Bret Easton Ellis och de andra hundarna' ('Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs'). 

Wolff writes in Swedish, and her story in the issue is based in Spain. Here she discusses the tension she felt between a ‘Spanishness’ and ‘Swedishness’, when writing and between a rational way of being and a magical way of thinking. 

She also discusses Lorca, Dante, literary travellers and their guides and the idea of irrationality and the artistic temperament. ‘I think in the beginning it was a crisis. I started to write because I felt the need to fit in, and not be an outsider... I have felt bound to an outsideness and an otherness.’ Image © Håkan Sandbring.