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🇦🇹 Austria /Culture & Society

“Twenty people can sit by a carp pond and not a single fish will bite”

From Die Presse · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Interview Named sources Context piece
  • Florian Horwath, also known as DJ Tschamba Fii, has worked as a DJ, radio presenter, musician, author, screenwriter and family therapist.
  • His new novel, “Als ich einmal blind wurde,” emerged organically, with the ending taking shape during the writing process.
  • Horwath says he writes at different times and places, and describes the process as intensely enjoyable and focused on the present moment.

Florian Horwath has spent much of his life moving between professions. He has worked as a DJ and radio presenter at FM4, makes music, writes books and screenplays, and is also a family therapist. As a child, he often felt that he belonged nowhere. He illustrates the feeling with a line from an unreleased song: “I don’t belong to anyone, I don’t belong to anything, I just wanna watch the night begin….”

Yet Horwath is more drawn to the working day than to the quiet of night. He writes at different times and in changing locations, he says, and does not need silence. He spoke at his studio in Währing, a former small grocery shop that still carries the sign “Greissler am Lidlberg.”

I don’t belong to anyone, I don’t belong to anything, I just wanna watch the night begin….

· Florian HorwathHe quotes a line from an unreleased song while describing his childhood feeling of not belonging.

His new novel, “Als ich einmal blind wurde,” took shape in bursts. Horwath says he had something like a plot beforehand, but the ending emerged as he wrote. He describes the process as drawing on “the encyclopedia of the universe.” Writing may now become a lasting way of life after years of moving among different occupations. “It’s incredibly enjoyable,” he says.

It’s incredibly enjoyable.

· Florian HorwathHe describes the pleasure he gets from writing.

Horwath rejects precise life plans. Music began with DJ work, without a fixed ambition to make an album, and writing developed in much the same way. Personal experiences enter his books, he says, but largely unconsciously. He comes to know his characters only by inventing them.

“What I value most is that you focus completely on the moment. You have to let go of fear of failure and possible greed. Then the hours fly by.” His novel takes readers to Timișoara in Romania, a city associated with the pessimist aphorist Emil Cioran, although Horwath says the connection was not deliberate because he has never been to Romania. The article compares this with Karl May, who wrote celebrated travel novels without leaving home. Early positive reviews have described the book as a wild ride through a young life.

What I value most is that you focus completely on the moment. You have to let go of fear of failure and possible greed. Then the hours fly by.

· Florian HorwathHe explains what he values most about the writing process.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Presse in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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