After finishing my Indology studies in Cologne, Bonn and Varanasi, I started working as a freelancer foreign correspondent for Deutschland Radio. I’ve been doing that job now for over 26 years. Every year, I spent around 3 months on working holiday abroad, mostly in Asia, South East Asia, in Middle-Eastern countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain or Oman, Australia and New Zealand.
The subjects I cover range from literature, politics, religion and gender – as well as related social issues. Over my 26 years working as a radio journalist, I established a solid network which enables me to pre-arrange and sell all my chosen topics for my work before I leave Germany. The editors I work with are predominantly from literature, politics, religion and education departments.
Deutschland Radio consists of three main channels: Deutschlandfunk (Cologne), Deutschlandfunk Nova (Cologne) and Deutschland Kultur (Berlin). The three channels attract over 2 million listeners every day. Whereas Deutschlandfunk Nova caters for a younger audience, Deutschlandfunk and Deutschland Kultur target people between 30 and 70 years of age. Deutschland Radio in general provides unbiassed information for an audience that predominantly comes from an academic background.
After having been to South Korea four times, I have covered a lot of Korean topics for our German national radio, including pieces about religion, politics, the hopes (and disadvantages) of reunification, the rapid modernization of South Korea, and also literature. My last audio feature, which I began in 2019, was on South Korean literature, and primarily concerns political literature. Hwang Sok-yong, Choe Yun, Ko Un and Yi Mun-yol are spotlighted in the piece. Additionally, I want to discuss literature from and out of North Korea. Due to Covid-19, for the time being this project had to be postponed. This is because I would rather “greet and meet” the publishers, translators, and authors whose work I portray because this enables me to understand the situation and circumstances the writers describe. Being around and talking to lots of other people in person allows me to broaden my horizons.
I’m happy to be part of the Online Publishers Roundtable. My aim is to highlight gender relations in South Korea and the situation of women in particular. I would like to use this occasion to talk to Han Kang, Francis Cha, Kim Sagwa, Kim Hye-jin and Cho Nam-joo. And I would very much appreciate it if I had the opportunity to talk to publishers who help those topics and authors enter the book market.
