Not with a bang, but a whimper
Tretter has got a master’s degree in English Literature, received after, as he puts it, »twelve marvellously gleeful years of studying. When it comes to socially accepted idleness, you just can't beat German universities.«
However, Tretter did not waste all of his youth on education. Obviously, there were spells of learning, too. He spent a year in Scotland, working as an assistant teacher in an Edinburgh secondary school; not just any school, though, but an educational challenge rough enough to get a mention in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. »Eighty percent of my material and hundred percent of my language come from this job«, he says. »T’ was a fuckin’ experience wi’ those mental cunts, you ken.«
But don't worry: Mathias Tretter will not sound too Scottish. »More like a light Glaswegian with a heavy southern German accent. In any case you’re in for a multilingual treat!«