Elena Leeke-Kuenzler

Hi! I’m Elena, a classic, messy twenty-something cliché who soon can no longer use the identification of student as one of their main marker of identification. I’m German and Northern Irish, grew up in Potsdam, a town just outside of Berlin in a bilingual household. I moved to Scotland in 2018 to go to the University of Stirling to study English Literature and Film and Media and now live in Glasgow where I’ve been studying at the University of Glasgow because Scotland just seems to have a hold on me! Most of my time is spent doing somewhat cottage core related

creative pursuits like reading, playing piano, cooking and baking, trying not to kill my plants and clawing my way from mediocrity to hopefully some proper good writing and creative projects like photography.

If you could have written one play/novel/poem/song, what would it be and why?

A book I would’ve loved to have written is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It’s such a feat for such a short novel, but it manages to fit in such a beautiful story in gorgeous prose that is never overwritten. It’s allegorical and fantastical, both simple and rich enough for in-depth analysis without losing itself in high and mighty literary references. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a love letter to The Chronicles of Narnia, a childhood favourite of mine.

If you could live inside one painting or sculpture, what would it be? 

There are a few that come to mind but the one that resonates most with me is Children of the Sea by Jozef Israëls, a painting I saw in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam a few years ago. There’s something about the colour of the sky and the ocean that just transport me to countless summer holidays spent at the beach in Northern Ireland, splashing in the water, getting sunburnt and looking for pretty shells and pebbles. 

What’s your ultimate desert island disc song? 

I think the most rational choice would be a long piece of classical music that I know I won’t get sick of easily, like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony but my non-rational choice would be Dear Soulmate by Laufey. 

What was the last film that made you cry? Or laugh out loud? (or both!)

The last film that made me both laugh and cry would have to be Barbie. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as funny as it was and the ending, if not making me bawl, did manage to get me to shed a little tear.