What are you working on at the moment?
Six months ago, my last novel »The short fire exchange« was published in Poland, and I am already writing the next one. I’ve just started. I write without a plan, so I do not know where the story will lead me.

How does your stay in the Literary Colloquium Berlin affect you and your work?
This is my second stay at the LCB. I feel different here – and this is in itself a good thing for a writer. I experience moods as if I am at a convent and a hostel at the same time. (Smile.)
I like the relaxed and social lifestyle here, the shared kitchen, small and big conversations. I’ve never asked any resident: Where are you from? I usually start conversation with the question: are you a poet or a writer? And then it goes on.
There is no forced conversation. Everyone here understands and respects our need for physical and psychological isolation, which is crucial for the literary work.
In this sense, we all scholarship holders know each other and at the same time we don’t. I’ve written many pages at the LCB already. I walk for a few hours every day, I go on the boat, I rest on my own. (Smile.) It’s much easier to get into the writing regime.

What experiences will you take home?
I have a lot of personal, even very personal memories related to the people I met here. Not only LCB and its surroundings are beautiful, but also Jürgen Jakob Becker and the other people working here are, they create the genius loci of the Literary Colloquium Berlin. They understand the writers. That’s it. I feel it. And I’m thankful for that.
I will remember the Literary Colloquium Berlin as a place where I felt good, I felt safe, I felt taken care of and understood. It doesn’t happen very often to me. It’s a luxury, and it certainly has a good influence on the literary disposition.

The interview took place in October 2018.