Matthias Politycki is often called the "world traveler” among German literati. Whether as a low-budget backpacker or as the on-board author of a luxury cruise line, his journeys have taken him far and wide. And they’ve brought him many unusual experiences, which he’s drawn upon in his works. His latest novel takes place in the Uzbek city of Samarkand. On this edition of Talking Germany, he speaks with us about faith, fanaticism and the finer things in life. Matthias Politycki recalls his earliest steps as a writer, back when he was an angst-ridden teen, as a compulsion rather than a choice. Born in Karlsruhe in 1955, he studied literature, philosophy and theater at university and went on to write a dissertation about the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Soon, though, he decided to leave academia behind and devote himself to writing. In 1997, he published his first best-seller, "Weiberroman,” which tells the story of a would-be womanizer and of the generation who came of age a decade after the tumultuous 1960s. Matthias Politycki is married and divides his time between Hamburg and Munich.