"There is no greater joy than forgetting oneself"

Cornelia Funke is waiting in her car in the parking lot in the high-lying Tuscan town of Volterra. A black electric Volvo, she had said, was as dirty on the outside as it was on the inside. As she gets in, she apologizes again for the car's condition: the dogs. The potholed, muddy dirt road leads steeply down the mountain; without their company, you'd think it couldn't be right and turn back. Two dogs greet her. The house is dark – thick walls and small windows provide cooling in the hot summer. From one side of the house, you can see a thorny jungle, from the other, far across the Tuscan hills. The house is both a tower and a nest. Surrounding it are places to write or do nothing: tables, chairs, armchairs, sofas.