April 4, 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You went from being a foreign correspondent to a writer of crime novels. How did that happen?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it makes a lot of sense because as a\njournalist, I also have to do a lot of research: I have to question people,\ntravel to places where things are happening, look behind the fa\u00e7ade, and\nquestion how things ended up the way they are now. Sometimes I also get in\ndirect contact with criminal cases, like with the serial killer Robert Pickton\nfrom Vancouver, about whom I wrote several pieces. Plus, crime novels normally end\nwith the exposure of the bad guy(s), unlike journalism\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, a bit. As the saying goes, \u201cgood news is\nno news\u201d, which means that as a journalist, you mainly work on stories with a\nslightly negative undertone. Of course I also try to find stories that are more\npositive. Those can sell, too \u2013 for example how Canada can act as an example\nfor countries such as Germany, how Canada treats its immigrants, and how the\ncountry handles the current immigration wave. Those things normally attract\nwide interest in Germany. But I agree with you when you say that the reason why\nmany people read crime novels, and why the genre is so successful, is because\nin the end the murderer gets caught and thrown into jail. There\u2019s some kind of\njustice \u2013 it\u2019s clear who the good and the bad guys are, and in the end the\nworld is made right again.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n How long does it take for you to\nwrite a book?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it\u2019s one year, on average, because I\nalso have to do research. I travel to the places where my novel takes place, which\nneeds additional time, and I also work as a journalist. There are probably\nauthors who finish a book in six months, but for me it normally takes about a\nyear.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n All this research is probably\nquite expensive, considering that you visit all the\nsettings for your novels\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, but it\u2019s manageable. Sometimes I can combine\nresearch for my novels with my work as a journalist. I once wrote about float planes\non Canada\u2019s West Coast, for example, and they later played a role in my crime\nnovel \u201cUnder Dark Waters\u201d. In this respect journalism serves as a source of\ninspiration for my crime stories.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Are there any stories that you\u2019ve\nalways wanted to write about, as a journalist or as an author?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I already wrote one of them, namely the life of\nElse Seel. She was a relatively famous intellectual and poet in 1930ies Berlin\nthat immigrated to Canada as some kind of \u201cmail order bride\u201d. She\u2019d read an\nadvertisement by a Canadian trapper of German origin in a German newspaper and\nanswered it. She then travelled to Vancouver and met him here for the first\ntime. On the second day, she got married and moved into the wilderness with him.\nThis very isolated life in a small log cabin wasn\u2019t easy for her \u2013 in the\nbeginning, she didn\u2019t even know how to start a fire, her husband was away\ntrapping for months at a time, and she was alone. It really was quite the\nchallenge. But I thought it was an interesting setup, an intellectual living in\nthe wilderness with a trapper. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Why is it that all your\nprotagonists are female?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There used to be all those crime novels with\nmale detectives who had a drinking problem, smoked a lot, drank coffee by the\nliter, and were grumpy all the time, and I thought, why not women? They can be\njust as good at solving mysteries. I think it\u2019s important for today\u2019s time that\nyou have brave women in crime novels. My heroines aren\u2019t always brave, they\nalso have their weaknesses sometimes, but they\u2019re always interesting,\nfascinating women. They\u2019re also no professional detectives but work in other\nprofessions, such as photography or law. I can imagine that other women can\nidentify with my heroines, and I think that there\u2019s a market for that. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Reviews on your books say that\nyou incorporate quite a few cliffhangers into your novels. Why is that?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I use cliffhangers intentionally in order to\nbuild up suspense and make my audience continue reading. On top of that you\nalso have to get your readers thinking for themselves about what could have\nhappened, or who committed the crime. This guesswork is part of the game.\nBesides, I like cliffhangers myself. I read many crime novels and thrillers,\ntoo, and I draw inspiration from those. I think you can learn a lot through\nreading. I\u2019ve never attended a Creative Writing class, I learned everything\nthrough reading.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Your books were also translated\ninto English. As an author, do you get a say in the translation process?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On that question I can only speak for myself. I\nhave a good grasp of English, so I know exactly if something isn\u2019t right. The\ntranslator wants me to cooperate with him, and it works very well. He sends me\nhis work, we discuss it, I accept his suggestions and he accepts mine. I can\u2019t\nimagine what it\u2019s like to have your book translated and the translator doesn\u2019t\nhave any contact with the author at all. But in my case, I got Gerald Chapple\nas my translator, and I think that I got incredibly lucky with him.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n After 18 years in Canada, is it\nhard to keep German and English apart?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I sometimes use English expressions that I literally\ntranslate into German by accident because I\u2019ve gotten so used to them that they\nslip into German. But even when I talk to Germans they use so many English\nwords, it\u2019s astonishing. Maybe there are also some distinctly Swiss expressions\nin my books, besides the English ones, that my editor then edits out. But\napparently it\u2019s not as bad yet as I sometimes fear it is. I guess one doesn\u2019t\nalways realize when it happens, but since I still read in German quite a lot,\nand am trying to be careful about it, it\u2019s still within reasonable limits. When you go to Switzerland\nnowadays, can you see the difference to the time when you left?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In my opinion, Switzerland is moving in a good\ndirection. Maybe I can only see the positive sides, but it\u2019s exciting to live\nin a country that\u2019s surrounded by four or five others, with all of the cultural\nexchange that brings. Here in Canada you can feel that the North American\ninfluence is very strong. It\u2019s even a bit one-dimensional. Europe on the other\nhand is very diverse, and you can feel that in the cities, like in Zurich with\nits distinct culture and streetscape, although of course Vancouver is very\ndiverse too. This is where I\u2019d need an English word to describe Zurich \u2013\ncutting edge. Vancouver is still a bit more laid-back. Is there any other place where\nyou\u2019d like to live one day?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two places that I\u2019d like to visit one\nday, New Zealand and Australia. Australia because it\u2019s a bit like a hotter\nversion of Canada. I might be wrong about that, but that\u2019s the image I have in\nmy mind. And New Zealand\u2019s nature is beautiful, of course, which makes it a bit\nsimilar to Canada. That\u2019s one of the things I like so much about Canada: its\nbreathtaking nature. The reason why I haven\u2019t been there yet is that there are\nstill so many regions in Canada that I haven\u2019t seen, but that I badly want to\nsee in the future. And when the time comes again for me to decide where I want\nto go, it always ends up being Canada.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Which other places in Canada do\nyou want to visit?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t know Manitoba and Saskatchewan all that\nwell yet. It\u2019s a shame that you always end up neglecting the Prairie Provinces.\nI also haven\u2019t seen much of New Brunswick yet, so I would very much like to\ntravel there. Northern Ontario is still missing on my list, too. Really, there\nare too many places. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So we can expect that one of your\nfuture books will be set there?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The next one \u2013 should I reveal that now? \u2013 will\nprobably be set in Labrador, and after that we\u2019ll see. I normally don\u2019t think\npast the next book.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" April 4, 2018 You went from being a foreign correspondent to a writer of crime novels. How did that happen? I think it makes a lot of sense because as a journalist, I also have to do a lot of research: I have to question people, travel to places where Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1574,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1638","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1639,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1638\/revisions\/1639"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bernadettecalonego.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTo be completely honest, I can\u2019t imagine writing entirely \u201cnormal novels\u201d. I\nthink crime novels suit me because there is a clear plot: you are searching for\na murderer and the story progresses quite linearly from the point where the\ncrime is committed, to where it\u2019s solved. And in between you leave clues, be\nthey misleading or actual leads, but not in a way that the reader immediately\nknows who committed the crime.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nHowever I\u2019ve been noticing about German crime novels that certain techniques,\nphrases or methods that were mainly used by Anglophone authors also show up in\nGerman books more and more. The pacing is a bit quicker and the tone a bit more\ndirect, and maybe also gorier. In my opinion that\u2019s where you can see the\nEnglish influence seeping in the most.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nOf course there are always things I miss about Switzerland when I\u2019m in Canada,\nand vice versa, but as a friend of mine said the other day: the grass is always\ngreener on the other side of the fence. And if you only visit for a few weeks\nat a time, you most likely only see what you want to see. My Swiss friends\nalways say that the landscape is spoiled because there are buildings\neverywhere, and new ones still keep getting built, but when I last went there I\nstill found it to be nice and green, and not at all as terrible as they\u2019d\ndescribed it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n