Milena Moser on questions from young readers

That’s part of my job: reading and answering letters. I get a lot of letters, mostly beautiful, sometimes ugly, and very rarely even threatening. But what I like most are the letters from young people who (have to) read my books at school. Not because they are the friendliest, on the contrary. But because they don’t mince their words. An astonishing number of them go something like this: “Dear Ms. Moser, I have to give a lecture about your book for school. Unfortunately I cannot find a summary on the internet. So what if you would briefly describe the content to me? What is the central conflict in the story? Which are the most important characters? » And, my favorite: “Which literary period would you assign your work to?”

I admit that I get a bit strict then. “Read first, then ask,” I reply. But if someone has read a book of mine and asks specific questions about it, then I answer too. Always, and gladly. Unfortunately, mostly not as expected of me. Because writing a book and interpreting it are two activities so different that you could almost say they don’t have much to do with each other. While I am often impressed and irrationally proud of the subtle connections that are discovered in my lines, I can hardly ever explain them – because I was not aware of them. I think precious little when I write. I let myself go, I follow the figures. Did Irma kill her ex-boyfriend, the professor, or was it really just an unfortunate accident with an iron? I dont know. Really not! Sometimes I think … and then again … In any case, Irma never showed me clearly. Otherwise I would have described it.