Podcast: Clemens J. Setz, how much truth can literature handle? | Dichtung & Wahrheit #6

In this episode, Laura de Weck’s guest is Clemens J. Setz. They talk about many fascinating topics, including Setz’s role as the nerd of the literary industry – and why he doesn’t find this description accurate at all. We also learn why the author believes in extraterrestrial life, how it feels to experience literature as a synaesthete and how he almost, but only almost, became a Bitcoin millionaire.

Clemens J. Setz lives in Vienna where he works as a translator and freelance writer. His literary oeuvre has received many awards, including the Kleist-Preis in 2020 and the Georg-Büchner-Preis in 2021. In his current novel, Moons before the Landing, Setz tells the disturbing life story of Peter Bender – a writer, founder of a religion and ardent advocate of the so-called Hollow World Theory, which states that we do not live on a globe but inside a hollow sphere – based on historical events.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.