In this episode of the Asymptote Podcast we return to the world of Mundartliteratur in Switzerland in an exclusive interview with Pedro Lenz, one of the best known Swiss authors who writes in dialect. His engaging and immediate works of prose and poetry present life in modern Switzerland as it really is: a far cry from the idealized herders of Heidi. His 2010 novel Der Goalie bin ig has been translated out of the Bernese Swiss-German into 8 languages, including Glaswegian English, and adapted as a film.

Podcast Editor Dominick Boyle talks with Lenz about the relationship between language, sound, and story. Lenz believes that the highly deliberate but ultimately artificial way he constructs his texts paradoxically allows a work to connect to its audience with fewer boundaries. We also speak about how his work was given a new life and context when translated into Glaswegian.