The publication of Woman, Idle (Die liegende Frau) follows the English translation of your previous novel What Concerns us (Was uns betrifft), also translated by Caroline Waight and published by Héloïse Press. What was it like to work again with the same translator and the same publisher?

It was a joy to witness that transformation again, watching one of my books become a kind of twin. It felt like a gift, the icing on the cake. Knowing Aina at Héloïse Press and knowing Caroline already made everything much simpler. I understood the broad steps, and I trusted them completely. My English isn’t strong enough to judge the translation in detail, but I’ve been told, and I hear it myself, that Caroline Waight is outstanding. I’m very grateful for her work, and for the huge effort Aina puts in. I also owe Aina the UK reading tour she organised.

What sparked the original idea for the book, and how did your thinking evolve as you wrote?

My books always begin with very personal questions. With Woman, Idle I began by asking what it means to bring children into the world. How does parenthood shape a person, and what does it mean for society and the environment in the face of overpopulation and the climate crisis? The first seed was a much shorter commission, an email exchange between Szibilla and Nora. They grapple with exactly those questions and, as later in the novel, they come at them from very different angles. Some time after that, Romi appeared almost of her own accord, bringing her own concerns and widening the field. At the time I was in a situation similar to hers, pregnant and caught between two men, so it felt natural to test those questions through a character. Her way of thinking, and the notes woven through the narrative, lay the thread that holds the story together.

I need to care deeply about the questions I write about. That was true here as well. How do I live a good life? How can I be a good mother? What does that have to do with my own parents? What is friendship? Literature is the right vessel for following such questions, through fiction, with characters who become fully alive and tangible to me.

In what ways does the book continue or develop themes you’ve explored in earlier work, particularly What Concerns Us?

They’re related, but also quite different. The kinship comes from the way I let questions lead me, and how I end not with answers but with new questions, or questions that have changed shape. In the earlier book I explored love for one’s children and the space needed for one’s own creative work. In the later one I push further, asking, I think, more political questions and testing other ways of living. Some threads run on into my next novel, due in German in February 2026, although its core theme is, to my mind, entirely different.

Do you have a particular process or routine when you write?

Ideally I write every morning, straight after waking, with a coffee by the laptop. With two children and other literary and financial commitments, that isn’t always possible. My routine runs on chaos. Plans get scrapped, and writing doesn’t always happen when I want it to. Sometimes I finally sit down and realise I can’t concentrate, so I go out into the woods to get moving, in body and in mind. At other times I’m out and about, when a key idea arrives and I’m ready to sit and write at once.

The main thing is to keep at it. I try to move through the world with a certain alertness, soaking things up and gathering. My two or three writing days each week are almost sacred, and I try to spend them in my studio. Every few months I take a short retreat of about a week to focus solely on the work, perhaps in Berlin, or at an affordable spa hotel with a close friend who also writes. The hotel spa in Woman, Idle was inspired by one of those places.

You’ve given readings in Bristol, Edinburgh and London. How did English-language readers respond to a story so deeply rooted in the Swiss mountains? Did you discuss with Caroline Waight how that landscape and sense of place might carry over into English?

That landscape wasn’t really a major topic, either between Caroline and me or with readers in the UK. I had no doubt she would capture the atmosphere. We didn’t have the chance to discuss the text for this translation, and I’d love to know how she approached it.

I was thrilled by the English and Scottish audiences. Those UK events were already a highlight for me three years ago. They felt much more relaxed than many readings in the German-speaking world, yet I still felt able to say a great deal about the work. That was certainly thanks to the three moderators, who asked sharp, generous questions. The audience was also more mixed in age than many events in Switzerland or Germany, and younger listeners may feel closer to the themes I’m exploring. In any case, the feedback was warm and curious. After the London reading, two young women told me they definitely wanted to read the book because they can feel how their own lives are starting to confront them with the questions Romi, Szibilla and Nora face. For a writer, there’s nothing better than that kind of response.

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