My friend Clare O’Dea is a dual citizen like me, but Swiss-Irish instead of Swiss-American. She’s also a writer of fiction and non-fiction and (unlike me) a professional journalist. A few weeks ago, she interviewed me for Switzerland’s version of an English-language online newsletter called The Local, which she writes for regularly. The article isContinue reading “Little Known Facts about Paradise”
Author Archives: Kim Hays
Some Useful Rat
When I was about thirty, I traveled around Germany with one of my uncles. A year or two before that, I’d taken beginner German classes for two or three months. You’ve heard the saying, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” Well, my trip to Germany made that clear. At the places we were staying, thereContinue reading “Some Useful Rat”
The Cold Days of Carnival
Monday, February 27, at four in the morning, the city of Basel’s Fasnacht celebration began. Fasnacht is the German word for Carnival, and Basel’s lasts three days. Yesterday morning, despite darkness, icy cold, and the painfully early hour, thousands of people lined the streets of Switzerland’s third largest city to watch groups of men andContinue reading “The Cold Days of Carnival”
Coming Soon to a Bookstore near You
Last August, I posted about Sons and Brothers, the second book in the Polizei Bern series. August 2022 was when I got a first version of the front cover to show off. Now I have the front and back covers, and the book is due out in sixty-seven days, on April 18. Here’s the latest descriptionContinue reading “Coming Soon to a Bookstore near You”
PESTICIDE Audiobook on Sale
Most of us loved being read to as children, and I guess I never outgrew my delight in it. I listen to almost as many books as I read, maybe more when my days are heavier than usual with cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, watering my balcony, or getting through some other task that doesn’tContinue reading “PESTICIDE Audiobook on Sale”
David Copperfield in Our Times
Animal Dreams (1990) is American writer Barbara Kingsolver’s second novel, but it’s the first one I read, and during the past thirty years, I’ve read it at least twice more. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, it spoke to me in the early nineties as if it were written just for me. It’s obviousContinue reading “David Copperfield in Our Times”
“Best of” 2022
December is when the lists of the year’s best books come out. The New York Times, the Economist, The Guardian, Time Magazine, and Amazon, among others, all list their favorites. According to the Literary Hub website, the novel that got the most raves on the various end-of-year lists is Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.Continue reading ““Best of” 2022″
Snow in Bern
Saint Nicholas Day came and went on December sixth, and winter still hadn’t come to Bern. Two days later, the fuchsias on my balcony were still opening their buds; there were new geranium blossoms, too. Then last Friday and Saturday it snowed, and since then the temperatures have remained below freezing. The snow is stillContinue reading “Snow in Bern”
Belonging
I’m a citizen of two countries, but I’ve never had to apply for naturalization. I acquired US citizenship when I was born and Swiss citizenship in 1988 when I married a Swiss. Becoming a Swiss isn’t normally so easy. In fact, even people who were born in Switzerland don’t get citizenship unless at least oneContinue reading “Belonging”
A Gripping Take on “The Troubles”
Like over fifty million American adults, I have Irish ancestors, although I have to go back to my great-great-grandfather and -grandmother to find anyone actually born on Irish soil. I was also an adult during most of The Troubles, the years from 1968 until 1998 when Northern Ireland was a battleground between the (essentially Protestant)Continue reading “A Gripping Take on “The Troubles””
Kim Hays 