This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.

This month we're going to hear sweet dreams by Peter Stan.

The man seemed quiet almost indifferent.

But in his eyes Lara saw an attentiveness and a kind of hunger

that she found a little disagreeable but at the same time provocative.

The story was chosen by Tim Parks whose essays and fiction have been appearing in The New Yorker since 1996.

His latest novel Sex is Forbidden is out in paperback from vintage.

He joins us from a studio in Milan where he lives.

Hi Tim.

Hi Deborah, hi.

Peter Stamiza is a Swiss writer who writes in German.

You've written about him and you love his work.

How did you first come across it? Did you read it in German?

Ah no, I don't actually read German.

I came across his work because in The New Yorker reviewer books asked me to review it.

As always, one looks with a little skepticism thinking, do I really want to review this?

But this was one of those wonderful occasions where you know that you want to read all the guys' work.

Not just the book you've been sent.

And why did they pick you to review it if you didn't know his work?

I think it was the first time they reviewed Stan.

...