How’s the Podcast going?

We embarked on the new podcast “The Epic Worlds of Alfred Döblin” with some trepidation – lots to learn about recording and storage technologies, ways to make the new podcast more visible, modes of presentation (our first – unpublished – try with a fully scripted episode was of course a wooden clunking disaster!), and how to fit sessions in among children, pets, and other distractions.

Katie has steered us wonderfully through the technical issues, and has turned out to be a professional-level interviewer. I’m a bit more confident than at first, though I still mumble too much.

We’ve just released Episode 7 – “The Weimar Twenties: Döblin the writer, activist and family man”. Three more episodes are planned for season 1, which will take us to the brink of a huge caesura in Döblin’s life and career: the 12 years of exile 1933-1945.

In Season 2 we’ll be covering the exile years, Döblin’s last decade to his death in 1957, and his legacy.

For every episode we’ve prepared a tidied-up transcript, omitting most of the ums and ers, and silently correcting minor errors in the spoken version.

So far the podcast has been accessed from at least three continents, but it’s early days to make any judgements about impact. However, we’re confident that along with the easier availability of Döblin’s major fictions, and the new Adventurous Reader Guides introducing specific works or themes, the podcast will serve to bring an intriguing and important writer to the attention of a wider public.

By the way, my publisher Galileo plans to release two more Döblin books in autumn 2024: my translation of Citizens & Soldiers (the missing first volume of November 1918: A German Revolution), and an Adventurous Readers Guide containing a themed selection of six dozen passages from seven of Döblin’s epic novels.

We know from responses to this website that there’s a pent-up demand from Anglophone readers for more Döblin fare. We’d be delighted to receive more comments, and reactions to the podcast!