My Creative Cup of Tea

June 16, 2026

#MCCOTInterview {55}

Carsten Henn, the idealist storyteller who strongly believe that literature can bring people together again

Summer is finally just around the corner. We'll officially celebrate its long-awaited arrival next week on 21st June. For many of us, this means more free time to spend on hobbies we truly love and that make us happier, like reading, for example. At MCCOT, as passionate supporters and promoters of creativity and talent from day one, and as storytellers ourselves, we're excited to introduce Cologne-born Carsten Henn, a talented food critic and wine journalist and the author of the bestselling novel 'The Door-To-Door Bookstore'. A humble person despite his success, and a cat lover who is truly grateful his books have already reached and touched so many people around the world. A passionate man who fell in love with words at a young age and turned it into his life’s work. An author who can bring very likeable fictional characters to life, ordinary people dealing with everyday life issues that readers can easily relate to and understand by putting themselves in their shoes. Let's meet a genuine and happily proud storyteller who trusts his gut first and writes intuitively, inspired by his friends, family and the world around him. A man who still writes for fun and enjoys the simple pleasure of sharing beautiful and meaningful stories, born from his imagination and connecting people with each other. Because writing is a true act of generosity. It's not about chasing fame, success or money at all. And that's all the better.

By Hèlène Battaglia

Who are you?

A man who is fortunate enough to make his living from something very fleeting: words.

When did you turn your passion for food and wine into a full-time job?

In 2008 I took the leap into self-employment and have never regretted it.

From working as a food critic and wine journalist by trade to becoming a bestselling fiction author. How did your editorial journey start?

Literary and journalistic writing developed in parallel from my earliest childhood. Audio plays that I recorded on a cassette recorder, articles for the school paper, poetry to impress girls — it all went hand in hand. I learned to know and love my tools, the words.

Your debut novel, that is entitled 'The Door-To-Door Bookstore' and was published in 2020, sold over half a million copies in Germany and has been translated into more than 30 languages . The latter was also made into a movie starring Christoph Maria Herbst in the title role in 2024. How did you manage this unexpected huge success of yours as a new writer?

As an author I noticed the expectations of readers with my next novel, and as a young writer that could have led to writer's block. But I have been publishing since 2000, so I was able to deal with it. My good fortune was that I had already plotted the follow-up novel. Still, during revisions fears and worries circled loudly around me like hungry crows. A gruelling path. But I managed to tame them and make friends with them.

It is still a great joy when new translations of mine appear and suddenly readers write from countries I have never visited. Books connect across cultures and time — it's a kind of magic.

How would you explain it?

The universality of the story is our shared desire for connection, for community—something that has been lost in our digital, neoliberal world. We worship the gods of efficiency and speed and in doing so lose what makes us happiest: friendships. Happiness researchers have confirmed this impression. We are social beings, and in the book we meet many lonely people who are brought together by their love of books. We long for that analogue world with printed books, walks, and conversations instead of Facebook friendships.

How did it change your life?

In my everyday life nothing really changed; my wife, my children and, especially, my cats didn't care about the success - and the latter still want to be petted by me just as often as before. Thank goodness!

I recently had the pleasure to read your second book entitled 'The Story Baker“ that was published in 2022. It was a very pleasant reading. Have your main characters Giacomo and Sofie been inspired by real people ?

With my novel 'Der Buchspazierer' this was the case. The main character Carl Kollhoff is inspired by my father, the other main character, Schascha, by my daughter Charlotte. In 'The Story Baker' there are no such clear role models — however, it sometimes happens that only years later I notice who I had in mind for a character.

For the novel I did research at a bakery with a male and one with a female baker, and their love and passion for bread baking are reflected in Giacomo. They were both completely in tune with their profession, and the breads were fantastic. I also love baking, especially when the dough rises under heat and takes on color. Oven cinema.

How did you come up with this poetic but also dramatic story focused on facing grief, navigating big life changes, finding one's true path and happiness?

I don't know where the ideas come from, from which sky they fall, in which flowerbed they grow. But my novels always originate in my gut, not in my head. The head only comes in later. This novel probably originates in my fascination with bread baking, with the transformation that goes with it. We take flour, yeast, water, salt and something completely different emerges, whose origin you can no longer see. And yet the ingredients are the same. A symbol of changing while remaining true to oneself. Several characters in the novel must face that task. It is easiest for little Anouk, who playfully decides that from now on she is someone else. In our childhood that still seems quite easy; the older we get, the more impossible it seems.

Does the note 'for all who start from scratch' published at the beginning of the book, have a special and personal meaning for you?

I, too, had to start over once in my life — like some really close relatives, good friends, and certainly some of my readers. It is a demanding, hard, and sometimes long process. We must change in order to remain true to ourselves — which sounds easier than it is. We are like caterpillars that pupate into butterflies, which in turn pupate into something completely new. Constant change is a core of life; we should embrace it. And when change is hard for me, I always tell myself: even a good boat rocks when you step into it.

How do you choose the main topics you address in your stories?

I don't get the impression that I really have a choice. It's the themes that occupy me most at a given time and the stories that won't let me go. There's no plan. At most there is this curiosity, this passion, this deep, personal interest in turning something into a powerful narrative. Readers can tell whether a topic matters to an author, whether you're on fire for it. And the writing process is only fulfilling — although it will always be demanding and sometimes exhausting — when the theme of a novel won't let you go.

Is there something autobiographical in the stories you tell?

Autofiction is a big trend right now, but I think every text is autobiographical to some extent. Sometimes I only recognise months, sometimes even years later, where I find myself in my stories. The subconscious has its ways of sneaking in. But that's wonderful. Because AI‘s don't have a subconscious that meddles with their craft; they only have consciousness — a kind of consciousness at least. Everything is surface, nothing underground. And it's in the underground that the really fascinating things happen.

As it is for many authors, is telling stories kind of therapeutic for you?

Maybe, but that's not why I write. For me it's about the ancient cultural technique of people telling other people stories, of finding meaning where there may be none. You can see a novel as a story you tell yourself — a story you read yourself for the first time while writing it. You can also see it as a highly differentiated self-conversation, only without a therapist asking the right questions at the right moments. But I don't experience it as therapeutic, even though it is always a kind of digging within myself. It is a search for meaning; it falls more into the realm of philosophy, without having its scientific approach. Lived, narrated philosophy, if such a thing exists.

Do you have some editorial rituals when you are in the process of drafting?

Usually music is playing, and for each novel a kind of soundtrack crystallises over time. I mostly write at night, a habit I got into when the children were small and then asleep. At night I find the necessary calm: no one calls, no one writes emails, and reality becomes translucent and blurs at the edges. That helps a lot with writing. And my cats help too—at least when they're sleeping and not wanting to be stroked or played with.

Before being successfully published, have, by chance, some books you submitted to publishers, been rejected?

My poetry was all returned. But unfortunately there is hardly any market for poetry in Germany. Besides that, I have a novel—my very first—still in the drawer. And it will stay there forever. For everyone's sake.

In your short but already successful career as an author you received several awards. Which one is the closest to your heart and why?

I don't really feel it was that short. My first novel appeared in Germany in 2000, and many more followed. Before that I was already writing poems and short stories, active in the literary underground, reading in pubs and at festivals in factory halls. Over the years there were some awards, but none of them is particularly important to me. The greatest reward is always a text I am satisfied with myself.

Are you currently working on a new story?
I must be finished by autumn. That's why I'll get back to it this night.

When you do not write, are you an avid reader?

I have few rituals, but one is to start each day by reading. When I wake up — before I look at my phone — I read. At least half an hour, usually more than an hour. Not a book for study or research, but one read purely for the joy of reading. For my cats I have to make a tent from my duvet with my legs. First the tomcat snuggles under it, then the cat — and I must not move anymore. Wonderful! I enjoy it so much.

Your deep passion for wine brought you to become a wine journalist but also a winemaker. Could you tell us more about this new adventure of yours?

I wrote an entire book about how my viticulture project on the Moselle failed. Together with acquaintances I bought three steep-slope plots planted with over-70-year-old own-rooted Riesling vines. The slate soil was slippery, the yield low, but the pride of holding a bottle of your own wine was priceless. This adventure taught me humility, because nature is always king. And that is an invaluable lesson."

By the way, after reading the story of your lovable Italian baker Giacomo, I'm curious to know if you had a baking experience in the past?

I've always loved baking. I loved baking even as a child. When the kitchen — and then the whole house — fills with the smell of fresh bread or cake, that's pure comfort.

If you were a city guide for one day in your hometown Cologne, what would you suggest we visit?

Be sure to visit the 'Dom', one of the largest and most beautiful cathedrals in the world, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture housing the bones of the Three Wise Men. But our Chocolate Museum is also worth a visit. Everywhere in the city you can find traces of our Roman past—even in a parking garage. The city is strongly shaped by Carnival, which is celebrated here more than anywhere else in Germany, with a huge parade on Rose Monday. There is much singing, laughing, and joking. It is an incredibly vital, joyful city, a melting pot of cultures. A city that claims to be the northernmost Italy.

A message to the world...

In these times when the powerful want to turn us into competitors, let us reach out to one another, for we have far more in common than what separates us. And only together can we tackle the great problems of our world. A naive wish, but no less true and fundamental for that. Especially we in Europe should stand together and not allow what happens elsewhere to happen here: books being banned. Literature, all art, is the oxygen of democracy.

carstensebastianhenn.de

@carsten.henn