In this episode of the Granta podcast, we are joined by the Danish author Helle Helle, author of multiple novels and two collections. Her work has been translated into twenty-four languages and her novel they was published in English this year, translated by Martin Aitken. Six short stories by Helle Helle will be appearing in our forthcoming issue, Granta 175: Scandinavia.

We discuss writing about familiar places, Raymond Carver and the process of being translated.

Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the New Left Review, among other publications. He is the author of The Boys (2025).

Josie Mitchell is a senior editor at Granta.

Referenced in this episode:

• The short stories of Raymond Carver. 
• Short Cuts (1993), a film by Robert Altman, which adapted the nine short stories by Carver.
• Short fiction from the Norwegian writer Kjell Askildsen. A translated collection of his writings, Everything Like Before (2021), was published by Archipelago. 
• Writing by the Danish writer Herman Bang. You can find his short fiction in the translated anthology Some Would Call This Living (2022).