There Is a Place in the World for Socialism: Jenny Erpenbeck

The German author, who won the 2024 International Booker Prize for her novel Kairos and was recently at the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode, on socialism, bookbinding, and her father

- Chintan Girish Modi

This is your first trip to India. How did you imagine it would be, and how has it turned out?

Before travelling to India, I had imagined that it would be very interesting, different from Europe certainly, and with lots of colour and people. My husband, Wolfgang, is travelling with me. We like it very much here.

There are some things about India that seem really modern, and there are other things that make you feel like you have gone back in time almost 700 years ago. We saw a lot of poor people on the streets of Chennai. The social gap was not that visible in Kozhikode because most people are well-educated. We were really impressed by the friendliness of the people in Kerala, and just the fact that there are so many young people interested in literature. I have never seen them in such large numbers at a literature festival. I must warn you that our impressions of India are a bit limited because we are on a festival tour, and we usually go from the hotel to the festival venue and back. I look forward to exploring Jaipur, Delhi and Agra as well.

You entered the publishing industry as a bookbinder before you became an author. How did it make you see the physical process of making a book?