ZEITGEISTER ON AIR is the Goethe-Institut’s cultural podcast that accompanies the quarterly thematic editions of ZEITGEISTER, the cultural magazine published by the Goethe-Institut. It is aimed at people with an interest in art, international perspectives, original (and even nerdy) subjects, zines and Germany. For the podcast, we invite international artists and authors to tell us about themselves. Visit goethe.de/onair for more!
ZEITGEISTER ON AIR is the Goethe-Institut’s cultural podcast that accompanies the quarterly thematic editions of ZEITGEISTER, the cultural magazine published by the Goethe-Institut. It is aimed at people with an interest in art, international perspectives, original (and even nerdy) subjects, zines and Germany. For the podcast, we invite international artists and authors to tell us about themselves. Visit goethe.de/onair for more!

What does it look like when Franz Kafka changes your life? Artist Marianne Kolb from California – who is Swiss by birth – had this experience. She tells Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson about the grey days of her education and apprenticeship in a strict Switzerland during the 1960s and 70s. Her salvation: reading the works of Kafka, which were recommended to her by a colleague. In all her life, Kolb had never before felt so moved as she did by this Czech author. Kolb’s subsequent life shows how identification with the bug in “The Metamorphosis” can motivate someone to turn their own world around.