Gudrun Mebs is an award-winning children’s book author, but she fled to Italy to escape fame. What she does with money and why she doesn’t think her successful Grandma Frieder books are particularly valuable from a pedagogical point of view.
Interviewed by
Elisa von Grafenstein and Kathrin Werner
Gudrun Mebs welcomes you to her old apartment in Maxvorstadt in Munich. 65 square meters, three rooms, a rather bumpy linoleum floor in the hallway, the bathroom is still original from the seventies. The apartment served as a second home for years because the children’s book author and ex-actress lived in Tuscany for almost 40 years. In the eat-in kitchen there is a large work table with a red oilcloth tablecloth, two candles on it, and a collection of notes on the wall with sayings like “You can do what you have to do because you want it”. Here she sits at the typewriter for four hours a day.