Summary: Hello and welcome back to You Wrote The Book, a book based podcast hosted by Simon Savidge. Each fortnight over the coming months he will be joined by a special guest author to discuss their life as a writer and as a reader, from the current novel they have published to the first book they read and everything in between. Simon's guest for this episode is Meike Ziervogel. Meike runs publishing house Peirene Press, translating novella’s from around Europe into English. Her own debut novel ‘Magda’ came out earlier this year and tells, through three different narratives, the tale of Magda Goebbels who was one of the women at the top of Hitler’s Nazi regime. It is a compelling and emotional tale that was shortlisted for the Not The Booker prize earlier this year. Simon caught up with Meike to talk about her novel ‘Magda’ and why she couldn’t write it in German, as well as discussing Magda Goebbels herself, mother and child relationships, we also discuss how we look at the Nazi regime now both in England and in Germany, how our history does or doesn’t define us. We also discuss translating fiction from Europe to the UK and the power of the novella... Coming up over the next few episodes will be authors including Susan Hill, Anthony Marra, Natalie Young and Jennifer Saunders. If you have any questions for them, would like to suggest authors you think I should be getting on the show, or simply want to have a natter about books, you can email youwrotethebook@gmail.com or find us on twitter @youwrotethebook. If you want to hear Simon talking more books do join him every other week with Thomas Otto on The Readers Podcast, you can also find him chatting and reviewing book on his blog Savidge Reads. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes where you can find previous episodes with Evie Wyld, Keith Ridgway, Niccolo Ammaniti, John Boyne, Hannah Kent, Taiye Selasi, Joanne Harris, Patrick Ness, Damian Barr, Maggie O’Farrell and many more.
