Q&A: Katharina Volckmer, Author of ‘Calls May Be Recorded’

We chat with author Katharina Volckmer about Calls May Be Recorded, which is a ribald and mordantly hilarious workplace satire from an iconoclastic new voice, featuring one of the most charmingly troubled narrators of recent memory.

Hi, Katharina! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

KV: I’m a writer based in London. I write fiction and journalism and I’m interested in weird and wonderful things. I often write about bodies and the identities that come with them. English isn’t my first language and so I’m also interested in that space between languages and cultures which I have inhabited for a long time now. I also like taking pictures of trash and I have a beautiful cat.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

KV: I wrote somewhat morbid crime stories for my mother when I was a maybe 10 or 12 (I must have been a very strange child) and from then onwards writing was something that always accompanied me.

Quick lightning round! Tell us:

• The first book you ever remember reading: Probably on of the TIGER & BEAR books by Janosch? My father read to us every night and it’s hard for me to remember what I read myself and what he read to us.
• The one that made you want to become an author: I wish I had a more meaningful reference here, but rather bizarrely I read THE SHELL SEEKERS by Rosamunde Pilcher as a teenager (she was huge in Germany back then) and for reasons I don’t quite understand after reading that book, I felt like I could be a writer too. My books are very different from Pilcher’s.
• The one that you can’t stop thinking about: MALINA by Ingeborg Bachmann.

Your latest novel, Calls May Be Recorded, is out September 16^th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

KV: Funny, absurd, obscene, desperate, liberating.

What can readers expect?

KV: They can expect to laugh (hopefully), to be weirded out, to feel understood and maybe to feel a burning desire to quit their jobs.

Where did the inspiration for Calls May Be Recorded come from?

KV: It came from being an immigrant here in London, from feeling intimidated by this expensive city. From having worked at a call centre myself, from the experience of being overweight. It also came from desire to say all the things we would like to say at work but can’t afford to say.

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

KV: I loved writing Jimmie, he’s entirely fictional and I’m glad that he now exists on paper as well as in my mind.

Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?

KV: I was initially afraid of writing dialogues, I felt that as a foreigner this would be out of my reach but once I accepted that written dialogues will always be something artificial, it became easier.

What’s next for you?

KV: I’m working on a new novel and some essays and hopefully something for the stage.

Lastly, what books have you enjoyed reading this year? Are there any you’re looking forward to picking up?

KV: GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin, ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME I by Solvej Balle, MALE FANTASIES by Klaus Theweleit, the first volume of the AMADOKA Trilogy by Sofia Yuriyivna Andrukhovych, THIS MOURNABLE BODY by Tsitsi Dangarembga, PALACE WALK by Naguib Mahfouz, FAIR by Jen Calleja.

I look forward to reading the next volumes in the Balle’s septology as well as in the trilogies by Andrukhovych and Mahfouz.

Will you be picking up Calls May Be Recorded? Tell us in the comments below!