Saya Gray 10 WAYS (TO LOSE A CROWN) (2025)
Paulina’s story is one of introspection and subtle observation. Born in Berlin, she studied German literature and art history before becoming a full-time writer. She has written for newspapers and magazines like Die Zeit, DUMMY and Das Wetter.
Her literary journey began with the 2018 short story Manifest gegen die emotionale Verkümmerung (loosely translated as “Manifesto Against Emotional Decline”), followed by her debut novel Taubenleben (2020, Engl. “Pigeon Life”)—which was shortlisted for the EU Prize for Literature. These early works already hinted at Paulina’s ability to move fluidly through writing and thought, guided by intuition rather than convention.
In 2021, she published the intimate prose piece Sich erinnern, man selbst zu sein (Engl. “Remembering to be Oneself”), a concentrated, emotionally charged text blending prose and lyricism accompanied by Malwine Stauss’ delicate illustrations.
In her second novel, Dem Mond geht es gut (2025, Engl. “The Moon is fine”), a young woman narrates how she overcomes her fear of speechlessness with the birth of her child. Themes of love, loss, shame and belonging are woven into a poetic, fragmentary text that asks: How do we find language when there seem to be no words left?
In a recent interview, Paulina describes her writing as a way of tracing a feeling. What often propels her, she says, is a fear of silence, emptiness, even death. For Paulina, rhythm and sound are as crucial as meaning: she follows the cadence of words until text, voice and content resonate together.
When we asked Paulina for a track for The Rest, she gave us this glimpse into her current musical heartbeat: “Decisions aren’t really my thing, and since my mood constantly swings between two extremes, I move through music in a rather unstructured way. The place where all the songs I follow seem to meet is a kind of melancholy—for me, less about lyrics and more about sound—that touches my heart and can give me a cathartic sense of happiness. Right now, that’s “10 WAYS (TO LOSE A CROWN)” by Saya Gray and “Times Like These” by Addison Rae. Saya Gray as a consciously visionary musician, Addison Rae as an icon of the present, effortlessly moving between whimsical pop culture and (women-produced) richness.”
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