Julius Fintelmann is co-founder of The European Correspondent, which covers the most powerful stories from all over Europe, and in which citizens can read about the ideas shaping our continent for the better. Julius lives between Istanbul and Basel. The ERB’s Sander Pleij texted with him about a musical shooting on a rooftop.
SP
Julius, you’re in contact with a network of correspondents across Europe, which writers have recently been mentioned in that network?
JF
Hmm… Timothy Snyder, Felwine Sarr, Deborah Feldman, Didier Eribon, Carolin Emcke. Quite Western-focused, I know. I’ve also read more from Serhii Plokhy and Masha Gessen recently.
SP
I just asked my AI for the three most well-known living European writers. It answered Murakami, Ferrante and Knausgård. (I will call Silicon Valley and tell them to replace Murakami, with Houellebecq.) Who would you want to see on that list?
JF
If you ask me about one of my favourite European writers, I have to go with Orhan Pamuk. His books on relationships, life in Istanbul and social changes in Türkiye deeply fascinate and move me.
SP
Are there current novels that are imposing themselves on us / are urgent?
JF
I loved the intensity of Teju Cole’s Open City, it had a pull on me that not many books had, and I loved Cole’s perspective on the multicultural nature of Brussels. And Kim de L’Horizon’s Blutbuch I find especially important because of the author. Kim’s success exposed some nasty elements in Swiss politics. Politicians from the far-right party, which is also the country’s biggest party, really exposed their, in essence, anti-human convictions.
SP
Can you recommend one of those Turkish series I keep seeing on streaming services?
JF
There’s SO many, and most of them are very soapy but the one I really loved was The Club (Kulüp)
SP
Why?
JF
It starts with a woman shooting a man in cold blood on an Istanbul rooftop (is there a better way start to a show?). It’s set in a musical theatre in Istanbul in the 1950s, and showed me Türkiye’s anti-Greek racism of that time in a way I haven’t seen before. It’s also full of actually very good music.
SP
Thanks, I am off to a date now: watching The Diplomat on Netflix — loving it.
JF
Oh that’s just great, I need to binge the second season asap.
