Leif Randt, born in Frankfurt am Main in 1983, is a freelance writer who divides his time between Berlin and Maintal, near Frankfurt. He has written four prize winning novels. His latest, Allegro Pastel, tells the story of two freelance creatives in their thirties, Jerome Daimler and Tanja Arnheim. It was selected by Ijoma Mangold for the Mörike Prize of the City of Fellbach. It was also shortlisted for the German Book Prize and the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. The film of the book is shortly to be released. He found time between working on the film and on his next novel to talk to New Books in German.
Sarah Escritt (New Books in German): You have set your previous novels in an imaginary planetary system, a fictional nowheresville, Hackney and the ski slopes of Switzerland. Allegro Pastel opens at Frankfurt railway station at 6.30pm on Maundy Thursday 2018. The protagonists, Jerome and Tanja, spend time in clubs and bars in Berlin and Frankfurt and live in the Neukölln district of Berlin and Maintal. What prompted you to write a novel set in the here and now?
Leif Randt: The near future settings seemed to have lost their magic. Using them had become a well-established strategy and I was a little tired of it. At least for the moment. I wanted a fresh start with my fourth novel. And I had never written about Hesse or Berlin before even though I had spent most of my life there. After I had set the tone of my new third person narrator it was quite entertaining to deal with the obvious for the very first time.
As relationships and moods shift, you pick out different colours: moving from transparent to vibrant orange, violet, red, black and white, black and red, pastels. It’s as if every now and then you have coloured in a detail in a line drawing. Is there a colour coding?
Not as far as I know!
This book contains the elements of a conventional love story: there’s a love letter, a wedding, a couple of babies. But you have shuffled the pieces. There is a brilliant cast of characters, each modelling a different approach to life and relationships. Life is unconstrained by traditional models, except at two moments: the wedding and Christmas midnight mass. Why did you introduce the Christmas service in chapter 1?
While I started writing Allegro Pastel I was thinking about religion. Knowing that Tanja and Jerome definitely do not identify themselves as religious. But that they might be looking out for some sort of spirituality. May it be in the form of sports, ketamine, tea sessions or meditation. Jerome comes from a Protestant area, and it felt interesting to stress that fact, since it might be influential even though it’s difficult to point out the influences. During the Christmas service he does have an epiphany as to what Protestantism might mean.
There is the sense of a carefree era drawing to a close in this book. If you were to return to Jerome and Tanja now, what realities would be pressing in on their worlds?
Tanja and Jerome would still have a fun life fuelled by talent and privileges, but they would also feel a rising anger against reckless rich men commanding things in the west and in the east and also in the southern hemisphere of this planet. Jerome would be working on a utopian community-based web forum. Just for himself. Without reaching a proper audience. And Tanja would have published a rather provocative book that would have confused leftwing people even though it was an attack against rightwing people.
Ijoma Mangold has praised Allegro Pastel very highly and described it as ‘without doubt one of the most important works of German contemporary literature since Christian Kracht’s Faserland.’ You and Kracht have both been regarded as frontrunners in the Popliteratur tradition. Have you consciously written in this tradition?
Since I like movies, fashion and nightclubs, I tend to deal with popular culture within my prose. Sometimes in a meta kind of way, sometimes in a straightforward and sentimental way. Some authors reject the label Popliteraur because they fear that they will not be taken seriously. I would rather embrace it. As far as I know even the young Peter Handke in the late sixties was perceived as an author of pop literature. It’s totally fine to be pop.
In some ways this book could have been written to be filmed. Many of the locations are real and the soundtrack to the film is written into the book (Joy Division, Tanja’s Christmas 2018 Spotify playlist and so on). But this is also a meticulously constructed text. Every detail finds a counterpart, an echo or a half-answer somewhere else in the book. And much of this detail is going on in Tanja’s head or Jerome’s. What have been the challenges of transferring this narrative approach to film? Given that in the novel we rarely escape from Tanja’s perspective or Jerome’s, how do you avoid introducing the camera as a third pair of eyes?
At first, I was against selling the film rights. I believed that this could become a terrible German movie: since the novel itself had felt like a satire on a German film at times. After a fun brainstorming session with a film producer, I started to get involved and began to have hope. I thought romantic comedy and was willing to give screenwriting a shot. I decided to use voice overs from Tanja’s and Jerome’s perspective in order to bring their letters into the movie as well as some of their introspective statements. It was important to me that the film was accurately shot at original locations in Frankfurt, Berlin and Lisbon. The movie has now turned out to be quite emotional and funny at moments. It hasn’t become a romantic comedy though. I’d rather call it an entertaining arthouse drama. It will be in cinemas in fall ’25 or in early ’26.
At first, I was against selling the film rights. I believed that this could become a terrible German movie: since the novel itself had felt like a satire on a German film at times. After a fun brainstorming session with a film producer, I started to get involved and began to have hope.
Leif Randt
The language of the book is quite teasing and often very funny. There are some deadpan juxtapositions, the characters can be absurdly self-conscious in the words they use and English is sprinkled into the conversations. So there will be some choices to make when this text is translated into English. What is it that is most important to you that a translation of Allegro Pastel should bring across?
The aim was to get a text done that does not necessarily feel like a translation but to transport some of its odd German humour at the same time. I think the translator Peter Kuras alongside the editor Luke Neima did an excellent job. As far as I can judge the English version of Allegro Pastel is a fun read.
An extract from Allegro Pastel recently featured in the Granta Germany magazine and you came to London to promote it. How was the reception? How do you feel German writing generally is received in English translation?
I haven’t read many English translations of German texts. To be honest I think Allegro Pastel was the first. The reading in London was a very pleasant experience though. The audience had a laugh. And it was beautiful to be back in London after many years. I’m looking forward to returning for the official book premiere on the 1st of May!
You studied at Hildesheim University, which is renowned for its creative writing school. Is there a Hildesheim style or a Hildesheim approach to the craft of writing?
Hildesheim is a place where young people gather to enter the romantic field of text production. There is competition but also community, influence and inspiration. It’s a nice utopia … On the other hand, I have no clue what’s the vibe there nowadays. I left university more than fifteen years ago. Many of my old professors have switched universities or have even retired by now.
With the novelist, Jakob Nolte, and graphic designer, Manuel Bürger, you run the platform Tegel Media. What is the thinking behind this project? What do you publish?
When the three of us finally started to use smartphones after rejecting them for many years we wanted to reflect on this new era in our lives. So we started a publishing platform for short and easy reads on phones. Over time it developed in different directions. Nowadays we focus on quirky video art and live reading events at nice locations. In other words: Tegel Media is a community based non-profit hobby for positive vibes in rather scary times.
You have mentioned that you have been working on your next novel. Are you able to tell us about it?
It’s a coming-of-middle-age-novel about grief, fashion and family bonds. The main locations are Berlin, Japan, Wolfsburg, Tenerife and India. It will be out on the 4th of September. The title is: Let’s talk about feelings.
Thank you, Leif!
Allegro Pastel is due to be published in English by Granta in May 2025.
Allegro Pastel is a New Books in German recommended book. Read our full recommendation of the novel here.
Author photo © Belle Santos
Leif Randt, born in Frankfurt am Main in 1983, is a freelance writer who divides his time between Berlin and Maintal, near Frankfurt. He has written four prize winning novels.
Sarah Escritt has a longstanding interest in German and translation. She read German and Italian at university and now works as a solicitor and part-time translator. She recently completed a Masters in Literary Translation.
