Almost all my stories somehow originate in reality

Transfer talk with author Wolfgang Hohlbein and literary scholar Prof Dr Anne-Rose Meyer in the Kluterthöhle cave in Ennepetal

It's hard to believe, but 385 million years ago the Kluterthöhle cave was part of a tropical sea. Geographical processes folded up the seabed to form a huge mountain range. Further uplift of the earth's crust and the deepening of the valleys caused the water level to drop, so that today the cave can be entered with dry feet. Underground lakes, bizarre, mysterious passages and the fossilised creatures of the former reef, in the form of sponges or corals, can be seen in 380 passages almost 5800 metres long. The air in the Kluterthöhle cave is considered to be particularly healing and offers recognised treatment options for respiratory diseases and allergies.

At a special cave station, which is not open to public tours, the Vice-Rector for Planning, Finance and Transfer, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Anke Kahl, meets the literary scholar Anne-Rose Meyer and the author of fantastic literature, Wolfgang Hohlbein, for a conversation.

He has sold more than 43 million books, manages time and again to transport people mentally into strange worlds and yet literary studies often treat him with disdain: Wolfgang Hohlbein. Not so at the University of Wuppertal. The literary scholar Prof Dr Anne-Rose Meyer, who herself teaches seminars such as "Immortal: Vampires in Literature and in Children's and Young Adult Books", became aware of the Neuss author through a student whose term paper was on a novel by Hohlbein. Contact was made and Meyer, who was aware of her students' interest in topics such as horror and fantasy, invited the author to Bergische Universität. The preparation was not easy, as Hohlbein has written more than 200 books in total. "I tried to pick out one or two books from each area in order to be able to say something about the structure and content," says the dedicated lecturer.
For Wolfgang Hohlbein himself, in whose novels the underworld often plays a decisive role, the Kluterthöhle is only the second cave he has actually visited. And he immediately develops new ideas from it. "I just asked our friendly cave guide how long the cave has been known and he said that it was probably discovered about 400 years ago, although we don't know exactly. And I immediately had images in my head of what it must have been like back then. Nobody knew how the passage continued. It could have ended after five metres or been an abyss or a labyrinth so that you couldn't find your way out. And just the idea of going in here with just a torch, not knowing what to expect, would scare me a little. But there's something incredibly fascinating about it. It's not without reason that one of my favourite books is "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" by Jules Verne."

Almost all my stories are somehow based in reality

His genre themes include fantasy, fantasy, historical, horror, science fiction, but also adventure and children's books. Despite this variety of different themes, almost all of his stories are set in reality.
"No matter how fantastic they are, most stories start when I see something, hear something or ask questions. Again, I realise that if you put yourself in this environment, the images come to me all by themselves. Then I don't even think of science fiction stories set on alien planets, because then this primal quality is awakened in me again."
Hohlbein loves the mysterious and explains it immediately. "A long time ago, I got out of the habit of taking everything I see for granted. So we're sitting here now and doing an interview. But what happens if we can't get out of here? Not because the entrance is buried, but because the corridor suddenly ends back there? Even if we are absolutely sure, we came from the left. But suddenly the path leads to the right and up a staircase that I didn't see earlier. These are things I wonder about. It doesn't have to be the great mysteries of history, the meaning of life, etc., but the little things that determine our daily lives."
 

I hated this job right from the start

"Everyone is born with the ability to do one thing exceptionally well, but the tragedy of life is that most people never find out what their talent is," he once said, and he makes it specific to himself. "I learnt to be an industrial clerk because my parents wanted me to," he says, "hardly anyone will believe that today, but there was once a generation that did what their parents wanted. I hated this job from the very beginning. I then took refuge in fantasy worlds, started making up stories and writing."
Hohlbein is convinced that everyone has a special talent. "Some things may not be suitable for normal life. But if you really like doing something, if you put your heart and soul into it, then you're good at it. And then fate, chance or randomness also play a role in whether you get the chance to make something of it. So thank God I got this chance and it's like hitting the jackpot, I don't have to think anything of it," and summarises, "all the people I know who are really happy in their job and are also successful, they like doing it." His credo: "I always say it's one third talent, one third luck and one third hard work. You can't do it without one of the three. But you can't underestimate luck or chance or external circumstances over which you have no control."

German pigeonholing

For years, Hohlbein has resisted the title of fantasy author that the press has given him, preferring to call his work fantastic literature. "This categorisation is so typically German," he says. "So it's Martians, then it's science fiction, then it's magic, then it's fantasy, and if there's a witch in it, then it's a fairy tale. I think the days when you had to pigeonhole things and stick labels on them are over. Fantastic stories, that's what they are for me."
When asked where the appeal of horror comes from in times of blockbuster films like "The Nun" and "Halloween", which each grossed over 100 million dollars, he says with a smile: "I don't know. If I knew, I'd write a clever book about it," and then explains his idea with reference to "evil". "Evil has a certain fascination. It's no coincidence that most of the great film heroes are bad guys. The classic is "Star Wars". The real hero is Darth Vader, the villain. And there are lots of them. So my favourite of my own books is "Hagen von Tronje", the Nibelung story. As the title says, the hero is the supposed villain. So I think we all have an affinity for evil. Who hasn't dreamt of getting back at their neighbour because their dog keeps peeing in their garden or something like that. You don't do it, but there's something about revenge fantasies. I admit that quite openly. It's also fun."

Hohlbein only writes at night

The fact that Hohlbein mainly writes at night has nothing to do with the idea that you can formulate the horror better then, but is due to his previous family situation. "We had a small flat, but already had two children. So working during the day was out of the question. I did it in the evening when the children had gone to bed and my wife was slowly falling asleep on the couch." A pragmatic solution that has stood the test of time for over 30 years.
Hohlbein is also not averse to experimenting with writing. In response to criticism of his latest novel "Killer City", he explains that this novel was originally conceived as a multi-part episodic novel, but was then cancelled by the publisher. Hohlbein nevertheless retained the format in the now classic novel form. "That was also an experiment for me and I won't repeat it so excessively now, but I don't regret it either."

The audience is very important to me

He doesn't read reviews and the press and feature pages treat him quite kindly. But his audience is most important to him. "What do I gain from the best reviews if people don't like the books? I've won a lot of prizes. There are a number of public prizes, such as the recent Bookstar, which were actually awarded by children, young people or the public, and they are much more important to me than another literary prize from a newspaper. The audience is very important to me."
Prof Dr Meyer believes that the invitation to the German writer fully fulfils the benefits of contemporary literature for students. "I think it's very important to engage with literature that is now read by many people," she says. "It's incredibly exciting to see how old stories, whether it's the Ring of the Nibelungs or vampire stories, change. How an author of today deals with this legacy, what new accents he sets and what this has to do with our contemporary society. That's why Wolfgang Hohlbein's work is so interesting to discuss in seminars."
The American astronomer Carl Sagan says: "Imagination takes us to unimagined worlds. Without it, we go nowhere." Continued success, Wolfgang Hohlbein.

Uwe Blass (conversation from 31 January 2019)
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Wolfgang Hohlbein, born in 1953, is a German author in the genres of horror, science fiction and fantasy literature. With around 43 million books sold, he is one of Germany's most successful authors. His breakthrough came in 1982 with the novel Märchenmond, which he co-wrote with his wife.[2] Wolfgang Hohlbein lives in Neuss.
Prof. Dr Anne-Rose Meyer studied General and Applied Linguistics, Modern German Studies and Romance Studies at the University of Bonn and received her doctorate in 2000. Meyer habilitated at the University of Paderborn in 2009. She was appointed an associate professor at the University of Wuppertal in 2018.