In the morning, when I get up, the first thing I see from my bedroom window is North Korea. I live in the heart of Berlin but my next-door neighbor is the embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In its huge facilities, inherited from when communist Germany (the GDR) existed, German law does not apply. The person who calls all the shots in there is a diplomat named Kim Chol Jun who, according to the German foreign ministry, does not hold the rank of ambassador.

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They came to Madrid to counterprogram one of Europe’s largest real estate fairs, The District. What they found was an 87-year-old woman who was about to be evicted from their home — and was, before their eyes. Around 200 housing activists from more than 20 countries across Europe decided to join the demonstrations against the eviction, and later joined a spontaneous encampment in front of the Madrid regional government headquarters at the historic Puerta del Sol plaza.

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The warning arrives in the form of an email, just a couple of days before the interview. Helen DeWitt, author of The Last Samurai, one of the most acclaimed novels of the century, has requested, as a prelude to the conversation with EL PAÍS, that her latest blog post be read. According to the mediator from Random House (her Spanish-language publisher) in the post, she “talks a bit about how, sometimes, the promotion imposed on her by publishers or awards prevents her from doing what she’s dedicated to: writing books.”

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