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Photograph by Philip Oltermann
Philip Oltermann spoke to Ollie Brock for the Granta Podcast about English bathrooms and German car engines, and how his experience as an outsider became the nexus of his forthcoming book.
To listen to the podcast, either click on the player below, or visit our iTunes page, where you can subscribe to make sure you receive every episode.
Photograph by Philip Oltermann
‘She must have loved gold seeing that everything in the penthouse was gold. We didn’t sit. Fear didn’t let us see where to sit.’ A story by Adachioma Ezeano.
‘I had also, a week earlier, been fired for trying to sleep with my boss’s husband. I got the idea from a book, or maybe every book.’ A story by Emily Adrian.
‘The Mitsubishi conglomerate controls a forty per cent share of the world market in bluefin tuna; they are freezing and hoarding huge stocks of the fish every year.’ Katherine Rundell on extinction speculation.
‘Two roof tiles are missing to the rear: the kiss of death. Without repair, ruination is now inevitable. Until then, this is my best hope of shelter.’ Cal Flyn visits the island of Swona in northern Scotland.
‘I’m on the cliff of myself & these aren’t wings, they’re futures. / For as long as I can remember my body was a small town nightmare.’ A poem by Ocean Vuong.
Philip Oltermann is an editor on the Guardian's comment desk, and the author of Keeping Up With the Germans: A History of Anglo-German Encounters.
More about the author →‘I love that image. Me flying over Germany, throwing sex bombs into people’s minds.’
‘Some stories begin with an incident, or a set of enigmatic circumstances, or a scene indelibly witnessed, or the relationship of unlike temperaments, or even something as gossamer as a mood. And then there is the kind of story that is rooted in an idea.’
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