Author Interview: John Morgan

Why have you written Beer & Sauerkraut?
Having since 1972 spent most of my time in Germany since, I have grown completely oblivious to the many aspects of life here that seem odd to people coming from abroad to work or study in Germany for the first time. It is only when we have visitors from abroad that my memory is now jogged by their comments and I realise how strange I also found so many things when I first came to the country.

There are several books about Germany in English that try to explain life here, some of them being very humorous. However, most of the authors are foreigners and some seem to have only a very superficial knowledge of their subject.  I first had the idea of writing a serious book on the subject, with just the odd cartoon to lighten things up. However, I soon had so many ideas for cartoons that I decided rather to create a cartoon book with just a little text explaining the cartoons for those not acquainted with life in Germany.  In this way readers can (hopefully) be amused by the cartoons but still learn a lot about Germany and Germans at the same time.

What is your favourite drink to consume while writing?
Normally, I like to drink either tea or coffee while writing. Probably I would be much better off with a cold drink because I often completely forget to drink my tea or coffee, being so engrossed in my work. I then end up drinking my beverage cold!

If by the late afternoon I reach some milestone or other in my writing, it is definitely time for a good old-fashioned English gin and tonic, together with my wife, which I suppose not only proves that there is still some good English blood in my veins but also that my wife has also become at least slightly anglophile!

Do you have any bad habits while you’re writing?
As far as I know, I only have two bad habits while I am writing. First, I almost lose all sense of time but eventually my stomach reminds me in no uncertain manner that it’s time for lunch or supper! The second bad habit is that I become completely unaware of my surroundings, not even hearing my wife when she is talking to me. However, those magic words: “Lunch is ready!” immediately bring me back into the real world!

Who do you think would enjoy reading your book?
I know from showing extracts from my book to friends and acquaintances in Germany that most foreigners who have settled in here will be interested in reading my book, as it pinpoints so many aspects of life here that seem so different from their home countries. I also suspect that many people living elsewhere in the world will have an interest in finding out strange and amusing things about Germany and thereby having a good laugh. Also, there are many people of German heritage living all over the world and many will be curious to read something light-hearted about the land of their forefathers. Quite apart from that, there seems to be general interest in humorous books at the present time to help us think of something other than the Covid-19 pandemic.

How would you entice people to read your book?
Germans have a reputation for being serious, very hard-working and good at soccer! However, there is much more to Germans in Germany than this, even some very funny aspects. Read this book, and you will really find out what makes the Germans tick!

If you could live in any fictional world, which would you choose and why?
I would definitely choose to live in a space odyssey. When I was still at school, there was a radio series called “Journey into Space”, the leading character having the name of “Jet Morgan”! For a time, “Jet” became my nickname! Our physics teacher at school almost ruined my grand dreams of becoming a space traveller one day when he seemed to prove by complicated calculations that we would never be able to develop a rocket powerful enough to escape the earth’s gravity. It didn’t take many years for him to be proved completely wrong! Despite our physics teacher, I never tired of dreaming of travelling through space and time one day and that is the fictional world I would love to join!

If you could befriend any fictional character, who would you choose and why?
Having such a wide choice makes things very difficult but I have decided that I would become a friend of George Smiley, who features in Smiley’s People and several others spy books written by John le Carré. I often visited West Berlin on business when I was working for a US conglomerate during the “cold war” in the early 1970s. At that time, one could “feel” the tension in the air in the city and I sometimes found myself being photographed with telescopic cameras by the East German guards at the Brandenburger Tor and at Checkpoint Charlie. The world of Smiley’s People was never far away!