OUR PROJECT: TEH_006_ Small Talk with Nicole M. . writer Ottar Martin

OUR PROJECT: TEH_006_  

Small Talk with  Nicole M. . writer Ottar Martin  

 Correspondent: Joan Martinez -25/11/17

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Small talk with Nicole Millar 

Nicole interviews the Icelandic writer Ottar Martin. (03/11/2017)

http://www.elpuntavui.tv/video/240688506.html

          1-    Why do many Icelanders live in Barcelona?

2-    What does Ottar miss most from Iceland?
3-    How many times does he go to Iceland a year?
4-    Before he came to live in Barcelona, where did he live? and why is so special for him?
5-    Which are the main differences between Sevilla and Barcelona for him?
6-    How long has he been living in Barcelona? How is for him to live in Barcelona?
7-    How did Ottar know he was turning into a writer?
8-    What were his first impressions about reading novels?
9-    What did he study in the University?
10- What was the reaction of his mother when he told her that he wanted to study philosophy?
11- Why studying philosophy in the University was so important to him?
12- Who taught him how to play chess? Does he like to play chess nowadays?

TEH_006_  Small Talk with  Ottar Martin  KEY

1. Why do many Icelanders live in Barcelona?
Spain is very popular for Icelanders and he came here on a trip. For the past ten or twenty years Ottar has become quite popular to move here. In the past in the Iceland’s schools only taught English and French and now this situation has completely changed, the majority of young students are learning Spanish at the school.

2. What does Ottar miss most from Iceland?
Ottar misses the basic staff like family and friends, but nothing too much because they come here to visit him quite often and he really loves Spain a lot.

3. How many times does he got oIce land a year?
He goes to Iceland quite often, because of his work he has to go to Iceland two, three or four times per year. He needs to travel to Iceland to meet with editors, directors and producers.

4. Before he came to live in Barcelona, where he lived and why is so special for him?
He had lived in Sevilla for 5 years and then he lived in a small town for half a year called Utrera, where he learnt how to speak Spanish because before going to live there he did not know how to speak a single word in Spanish. He did not have more choices than to learn Spanish. His wife is from there too.

5. Which are the main differences between Sevilla and Barcelona for him?
Sevilla is beautiful like someone made it for you, above all his downtown is very beautiful. In comparison with Barcelona, Sevilla is smaller, but with a nice atmosphere. Barcelona is more like a metropolitan city. He can’t choose between one of them because they are different.

6. How long has he been living in Barcelona? How is for him to live in Barcelona?

Ottar has been living in Barcelona for two and a half years. He loves living in Barcelona because Barcelona has many things that remember him Iceland, for example the sea and the mountains. In comparison, in Sevilla Ottar missed the sea and the mountains that in Iceland he always had, and in Barcelona he has this feature as well. Although Barcelona is a big city, nature is quite close by. And of course, its people, its food and events that attract people from all over the world.

7. How did Ottar know he was turning into a writer?
It was hard for him, he felt that it was coming up from the closet, he felt that he had a voice inside him getting bored when he was thirteen or fourteen years old he was with his friends playing basketball and he started to feel this inside voice more poetic and he started to write in his notebook in hiding. His first way to express this inside voice was with poetry.

8. What were his first impressions about reading novels?
When he was young he enjoyed more watching movies than reading poetry or novels, and he thought that reading novels was a nerd thing that only nerds do. Reading was a bit alien to him. Later on, when his inside voice started to get bored he started to see the connection in telling stories through novels and poetry. 

9. What did he study in the University?
He studied science in college, his parents were in the hard science, his brother were an engineer and his grandfather were a doctor, so science world came natural to him. He was reading novels and poetry while he was studying science but he thought that science was more practical than novels and poetry. But when he finished college and started university he started a philosophy degree.

10.What was the reaction of his mother when he told her that he wanted to study philosophy?
She put a skeptical face because she wanted him to become an engineer like his brother.

11.Why studying philosophy in the University was so important to him?
The five years that he spent studying philosophy in the university were the most important thing to become a writer. For every day he was reading interesting texts, writers and philosophers, and they were teaching him how to work with ideas and get to grips with conveying ideas in essays and he tried to get across some thoughts, some feelings, and how to express himself.

12.Why visual arts was a huge influenced for him?
He studied visual arts. His parents were architects and for him, the architects are in two worlds, the science world and the artistic world. This created a gap in his brain and although he studied both worlds, he realized that he wanted to follow the artistic world.

13.Who taught him how to play chess? Does he like to play chess nowadays?
His father, who passed away, taught him how to play chess because he was a very good chess player. He taught him when he was two years old. He won a championship in his school. He loves to play chess and even now when he sees someone playing chess he stops and watches the game. 

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