Damion Searls on Overstaying by Ariane Koch

Damion Searls reflects on his translation of Overstaying, Swiss author Ariane Koch’s surreal debut novel (Dorothy Project, 2024). He talks through the book’s oddball humor and syntactic sleights—from “brushy fingers” to the German impersonal pronoun “man”—while unpacking the slipperiness of the German word for “visitor” and the politics of hospitality. This episode ends with Damion discussing an encounter with the most inaccurate—and most insightful—review of his work he’s ever read.