Ilija Trojanow

Ilija Trojanow at the Hausacher Leselenz 2015

Ilija Trojanow ( Bulgarian Илия Троянов ; born August 23, 1965 in Sofia , Bulgaria ) is a German writer , translator and publisher .

Live and act

Ilija Trojanow comes from a Bulgarian family who fled to Germany in 1971 via Yugoslavia and Italy , where she was granted political asylum . In 1972 the family moved on to Kenya , where the father got a job as an engineer. Interrupted by a stay in Germany from 1977 to 1981, during which he attended the Marquartstein State School Home from 1979 to 1981 , Ilija Trojanow lived in Nairobi until 1984 . He attended the German School Nairobi , which he graduated with the Abitur . This was followed by a stay in Paris, and from 1985 to 1989 he studied law and ethnology at the University of Munich . After dropping out of his studies, he founded the Kyrill-und-Method-Verlag in Munich in 1989 and the Marino-Verlag in 1992 , both of which specialized in African literature . In 1999 Trojanow moved to Mumbai ; in the following years he dealt intensively with India . From 2003 to 2007 Trojanow lived in Cape Town ; In 2007 he was Mainz city clerk . He lives in Vienna .

Ilija Trojanow at a reading in Vienna in 2013

Trojanow wrote several non-fiction books and travel guides about Africa in the 1990s , he edited an anthology of contemporary African literature and translated works by African authors. In 1996 he published his first novel The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Everywhere , in which he dealt with his family's experiences as political refugees and asylum seekers . This was followed by the science fiction novel Autopol , the creation of which could be followed on the Internet as a “novel in progress” , a travelogue about a reunion with the Bulgarian homeland and books about Trojanov's experiences in India with Dog Times . In the report On the Holy Sources of Islam , he described his pilgrimage to Mecca . In 2006 he published his highly acclaimed novel about the British colonial official and traveler Richard Francis Burton , The Collector of the World . He was awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2006 and was on the shortlist for the 2006 German Book Prize.

Ilija Trojanow has been a member of the Pen Center Germany since 2002 . In November 2007 Trojanow was a lecturer at the University of Tübingen as part of the Tübingen poetics lectureship .

In 2007 Trojanow made the film Forward and Never Forget - a ballad about Bulgarian heroes , which was shown on 3sat and on ZDF that same year. This documentation is based on conversations with political prisoners and contemporary witnesses who disappeared for years and decades in the prisons and camps of Bulgaria . It is about the crimes and atrocities of the Bulgarian communists and the lies in today's Bulgarian society.

In April 2008 Trojanow curated the literature festival “RE ASIA - Avatar. Asiens Narrator ”in the Berlin House of World Cultures .

For the taz , Trojanow has been writing the weekly column "The Pothole" since 2006, alternating with several other authors.

Ilija Trojanow has been editor of the Weltlese book series since 2008 . Reading journeys into the unknown , in which Trojanow publishes undiscovered authors and unusual or forgotten texts.

Ilija Trojanow at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2015

In 2009 Trojanow published the book Attack on Freedom together with Juli Zeh . Security mania, surveillance state and the dismantling of civil rights . In the context of the book presentation, the two authors criticized the fact that the state was increasingly penetrating the privacy of its citizens under the guise of counter-terrorism.

In 2010 Trojanow was the curator of the 1st Munich Literature Festival.

In 2013, in connection with writers' protests against the practices of US intelligence services ( surveillance and espionage affair 2013 ), he was refused entry to the USA to attend a Germanist congress. After the writers' association PEN and the Goethe-Institut campaigned for the lifting of the entry ban, Trojanow was allowed to enter the United States. On November 14, 2013, he took part in a discussion at the Goethe Institute in New York with the journalist Liesl Schillinger and the American PEN President Suzanne Nossel on “Surveillance and the naked new world”. On June 19, 2014 Trojanow gave a speech on the connection between surveillance and self-censorship at the opening of the "Parallel Lives" theater festival on the subject of secret services.

He is one of the supporters of the Charter of Fundamental Digital Rights of the European Union , which was published at the end of November 2016.

Trojanow has been a member of the Presidium of the PEN Center Germany since April 2017 .

Awards

• 1995: Bertelsmann Literature Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition
• 1996: Marburg Literature Prize
• 1997: Thomas Valentin Literature Prize of the City of Lippstadt
• 2000: Adelbert von Chamisso Prize
• 2006: Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair (Category: Fiction )
• 2006: Villa Aurora grant
• 2006: Finalist at the German Book Prize with Der Weltensammler
• 2007: Berlin Literature Prize
• 2007: Mainz town clerk
• 2007: ITB Book Award for instructions for use in India
• 2007: Tuebingen poetics lectureship together with Feridun Zaimoglu
• 2009: Prize of the Literature Houses
• 2009: Comburg Literature Scholarship Schwäbisch Hall
• 2009: Longlist of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award with the English translation of the world collector
• 2010: Würth Prize for European Literature
• 2010: ITB Book Award for refusal to fight , category "Cultures"
• 2010: Honorary membership in the German Language Association
• 2011: Carl Amery Literature Prize
• 2012: Longlist of the Europese Literatuurprijs with the Dutch translation of EisTau
• 2014: Brothers Grimm Professorship at the University of Kassel
• 2014: Shortlist Tractatus Prize with The Superfluous Man
• 2014: Writer in Residence in the one world foundation in Sri Lanka
• 2015: Longlist German Book Prize with Power and Resistance
• 2016: Max Kade Professorship at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA
• 2017: Heinrich Böll Prize of the City of Cologne
• 2018: Usedomer Literature Prize
• 2018: Vilenica International Literary Prize
• 2018: Honorary award from the Austrian book trade for tolerance in thought and action

Works (selection)

author

• In Africa. Munich 1993. (Photographs by Michael Martin ).
• Natural wonders of East Africa. Munich 1994. (Photographs by Michael Martin).
• with Chenjerai Hove : Guardian of the Sun. Encounters with Zimbabwe's elders - roots and visions of African wisdom. Munich 1996.
• Kenya with Northern Tanzania. Munich 1996.
• The world is big and salvation is everywhere . Munich 1996.
• Autopoly. Munich 1997.
• Zimbabwe. Munich 1998.
• Dog times. Return to a foreign country. Munich 1999. (Revised in 2006 as The fictitious revolution published).
• The sadhu on the devil's wall. Munich 2001.
• On the inner shores of India. Munich 2003.
• To the holy sources of Islam. Munich 2004.
• Masque. Libretto for the opera by Hans Huyssen , 2005.
• The world collector . Hanser, Munich 2006.
• India. Land of little happiness. Cadolzburg 2006.
• Instructions for use for India. Munich 2006.
• The fictitious revolution. Bulgaria, an exemplary story. Munich 2006.
• Nomad on four continents. In the footsteps of Sir Richard Francis Burton . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2007, Die Other Bibliothek series , ISBN 978-3-8218-4527-2 .
• with Ranjit Hoskoté : fight canceled. Cultures don't fight each other - they flow together. (Translated by Heike Schlatterer ). Blessing, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89667-363-3 .
• The unleashed globe. Reports. Hanser, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-446-23030-9 .
• Longing, get on your way. edited by Fatma Sagir . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2008, ISBN 978-3-451-05956-8 .
• Kumbh Mela. The biggest festival in the world. Photographs by Thomas Dorn . Frederking & Thaler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-89405-712-1 .
• Far nearness . Tuebingen poetics lectureship. with Feridun Zaimoglu . Edited by Dorothee Kimmich and Philipp A. Ostrowicz . Swiridoff, Künzelsau 2008, ISBN 978-3-89929-144-5 .
• with Juli Zeh : attack on freedom. Security mania, surveillance state and the dismantling of civil rights. Hanser, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-446-23418-5 .
• Oberammergau. Richard F. Burton visits the Passion Play (English by Richard Francis Burton and German, translated from English by Susann Urban ). Arche, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7160-2633-5 .
• with Susann Urban: I see the world with feeling. The notes of the blind world traveler James Holman. Malik, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89029-757-6 .
• The eaten zoo . With four drypoint etchings by Detlef Kraft . Maximilian Society , Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-921743-60-7 .
• Ice dew . Novel. Hanser, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23757-5 .
• The temptations of the stranger. On the move in Arabia, India and Africa . Malik, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-89029-404-9 .
• City of Books (photographs by Anja Bohnhof ). Langen Müller, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7844-3293-9 .
• The superfluous man. Residence, St. Pölten 2013, ISBN 978-3-7017-1613-5 .
• Where Orpheus is buried. Photographs by Christian Muhrbeck . Hanser, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-446-24341-5 .
• Knowledge and conscience. The monitored person - the resistant word. Hanser Box, Munich 2014
• Power and resistance. Novel. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2015, ISBN 978-3-10-002463-3 .
• Breaking a lance ... for political and social self-defense. In: Haus Bartleby (ed.): The Capitalism Tribunal. On the Revolution of Economic Rights (The Red Book). Edited by Alix Faßmann , Anselm Lenz and Hendrik Sodenkamp . Translated by Corinna Popp, Viktor Kucharski, Anselm Lenz. House Bartleby e. V., Passagen Verlag , Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-7092-0220-3 , pp. 55f.
• My Olympics. An amateur, four years, 80 disciplines. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-10-080007-7 .
• After the escape. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2017.
  • Unabridged author's reading / audio book: Argon, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-8398-1565-6 .
• rooted in stone. Poems. Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2017, from the English by José FA Oliver , ISBN 978-3-88423-575-1 .
• with Thomas Gebauer : Help? Help! Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-596-70188-9 .
• Instructions for use for traveling. Piper, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-492-27719-8 .
• with Thomas Windisch , Thomas Macho : Who lived here? Brandstätter, Vienna 2019, ISBN 978-3-7106-0140-8 .
• Double track. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2020, ISBN 978-3-10-390005-7 .

editor

• with Peter Ripken : Afrikanissimo. A cheerful, sensual reader. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1991.
• The chicken that screams belongs to the stranger. Munich 1998.
• Doner kebab in Walhalla. Cologne 2000.
• The world of Ryszard Kapuściński . His best stories and reports. Frankfurt am Main 2007.
• Egon Erwin Kisch . The most beautiful stories and reports. Berlin 2008.
• Jamal Mahjoub : The Hour of Signs. Frankfurt am Main 2008. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• FM Esfandiary : The final pass. Frankfurt am Main 2009. (Weltlese. Reading trips into the unknown)
• Marçal Aquino : Flee. And take the lady with you. Frankfurt am Main 2009. (Weltlese. Reading trips into the unknown)
• Herman Charles Bosman : Mafeking Road. Frankfurt am Main 2010. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Edwidge Danticat : The Prodigal Father. Frankfurt am Main 2010. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• John Steinbeck : Russian Journey. Frankfurt am Main 2011. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Behind the red sun. The most beautiful adventure stories. Construction Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-351-03369-9 .
• Indra Sinha : human animal . Frankfurt am Main 2011. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• David Malouf : The bravest of the sons. Frankfurt am Main 2012. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Victor Serge : The big disappointment. The Tulaev case. Frankfurt am Main 2012. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Anarchist worlds. Edition Nautilus, Verlag Lutz Schulenburg, Hamburg 2012.
• Peter Fröberg Idling : Pol Pot's smile. Frankfurt am Main 2013. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Arnon Grünberg : Couchsurfing and other battles. Zurich 2013.
• Olivia Manning : Farewell to innocence. Frankfurt am Main 2013. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Percival Everett : God's Country. Frankfurt am Main 2014. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Lola Shoneyin : The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Women. Frankfurt am Main 2014. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Kojo Laing : The Sun Seekers. Frankfurt am Main 2015. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Lila Azam Zanganeh : The Wizard. Nabokov and happiness. Frankfurt am Main 2015. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• José FA Oliver : HEIMATT: Early poems. Selection, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-89930-031-4 .
• with Susann Urban: Through the world and meadow or traveling on foot. The Other Library , Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-8477-0370-9 .
• Ilijas Shansugirow : The Song of Kulager. Frankfurt am Main 2016. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Abbas Maroufi : Fereydun had three sons. Frankfurt am Main 2016. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Pedro Rosa Mendes : The Pilgrimage of Enmanuel Jhesus. Frankfurt am Main 2017. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Arnoldo Gálvez Suárez : The revenge of the Mercedes Lima. Frankfurt am Main 2017. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Isak Samokovlija : The Jew who does not pray on the Sabbath. Frankfurt am Main 2018. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• John Okada : No-No Boy. Frankfurt am Main 2018. (Weltlese. Reading journeys into the unknown)
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi : My life. Munich 2019.
• Carlos Franz : The quartet of lovers. Frankfurt am Main 2019. (Weltlese. Reading trips into the unknown)
• GV Desani : Everything about Mr. H. Hatterr. Frankfurt am Main 2020. (Weltlese. Reading trips into the unknown)

Translations

• Timothy Wangusa : The Mountain on the Edge of Heaven. Munich 1989.
• Georgij V. Florovskij : Sobornost. Church, Bible, tradition. Munich 1989.
• Chenjerai Hove : bones. Munich 1990.
• Tsitsi Dangarembga : The Price of Freedom. Reinbek near Hamburg 1991.
• Richard Rive : Buckingham Palace. Munich 1994.
• FM Esfandiary : The final pass. Frankfurt am Main 2009.
• Aravind Adiga : Last man in the tower. Munich 2011.

Film adaptations

• The world is big and salvation is everywhere in 2007, by Stephan Komandarev (director) with Miki Manojlović as Bai Dan and Carlo Ljubek as Alexander

literature

• Michaela Haberkorn: drift ice and collectors of the world. Concepts of nomadic identity in the novels of Libuše Moníková and Ilija Trojanow. In: Helmut Schmitz (Ed.): From national to international literature. Transcultural German-language literature and culture in the age of global migration. (= Amsterdam contributions to recent German studies. 69). Rodopi, Amsterdam a. a. 2009, ISBN 978-90-420-2582-0 .
• Martina Ölke: Ilija Trojanow's successful novel Der Weltensammler. In: Petra Meurer, Martina Ölke, Sabine Wilmes (eds.): Intercultural learning. With articles on German and DaF lessons, on images of 'migrants' in the media and on texts by Özdamar, Trojanow and Zaimoglu. Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-89528-748-0 .
• Ekaterina Klüh: Intercultural Identities as Reflected in Migrant Literature. Cultural metamorphoses in Ilija Trojanow and Rumjana Zacharieva. (= Saarbrücker Contributions to Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. Volume 45). Wurzburg 2009.
• Alexander Honold: Arrival in World Literature. Adventurous history trips with Ilija Trojanow and Daniel Kehlmann. In: Neue Rundschau , 01/2007. Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 82-104.
• Kira Schmidt: Burton as the hero of a transcultural myth? To "Der Weltensammler" (2006) by Ilija Trojanow. In: Acta Germanica: German Studies in Africa. Volume 39, Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 97-104.
• Julian Preece (Ed.): Ilija Trojanow. (= Contemporary German Writers and Filmmakers. Volume 2). Lang, Bern a. a. 2013, ISBN 978-3-0343-0894-6 (English).

Web links

Commons : Ilija Trojanow  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• trojanow.de author website of Carl Hanser Verlag and dtv
• Literature by and about Ilija Trojanow in the catalog of the German National Library
• ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: audio contribution ) Deutschlandfunkm with a book review of the work Der Weltensammler
• Review with complete review (English)
• Ilija Trojanow: Go under for sure . In: Der Standard , 15./16. March 2008; essay
• Ilija Trojanow, Juli Zeh : Courage for freedom . In: Chaosradio Express , August 12, 2009
• Oases of freedom. Anarchist forays . onYouTubevideo, documentation aboutanarchism(description( memento from April 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ))

Interviews

• Interview. In: The press
• Interview and discussion of fight cancellation . In: The press
• Ilija Trojanow on FM Esfandiary: Identity search in the labyrinth of bureaucracy Interview by Nimet Seker
• Conversation with Ilija Trojanow. In: Weltwach , October 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ZDF.de/Aspekte ( Memento from June 23, 1997 in the Internet Archive ) 1997, via Internet Archive
2. ↑ Cf. Ilja Trojanow has converted to Islam and has written a moving book about it . In: taz , November 27, 2004. A passage in an interview with “Standard” (Vienna) on April 11, 2007 occasionally causes confusion, however, as Trojanow's answer to the question: “After you did the Hajj in 2003, in German media reports that you have converted to Islam "replies:" That still depends on me, but it's rubbish. I am against ideologies, so I cannot be a dogma. What interests me about Islam are certain traditions of Sufism, ie a more sensual, free-thinking orientation ”. In addition, Trojanow's report On the Sacred Sources of Islam is next to a story about his journey on Hindu pilgrimage routes ( On the Inner Shores of India ).
3. ^ ZDF documentation
4. ^ Posts by Trojanow on taz.de.
5. ^ New book: "Attack on Freedom" , heise.de, August 12, 2009.
6. ↑ muenchen.de
7. ↑ feb, lei, sha: Ilija Trojanow: After NSA protest, entry to the USA denied. In: Spiegel Online . January 10, 2013, archived from the original on April 5, 2014 ; Retrieved November 14, 2013 . 
8. ^ Ilija Trojanow: Entry ban for Ilija Trojanow: Arbitrariness and freedom. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. October 1, 2013, archived from the original on March 30, 2014 ; Retrieved November 14, 2013 . 
9. ^ Tomasz Kurianowicz: Discussion in New York: Trojanow on entry ban and NSA. In: Spiegel Online. November 14, 2013, archived from the original on December 17, 2013 ; Retrieved November 14, 2013 . 
10. ^ Ilija Trojanow: Knowledge and Conscience - In the Shadow Realm of Surveillance , Nachtkritik.de, August 19, 2014.
11. ↑ Well-known members of the German Language Association. German Language Association , archived from the original on February 8, 2017 ; Retrieved January 4, 2012 . 
12. ↑ Longlist Europese Literatuurprijs 2012 bekend ( Memento from May 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
13. ↑ philosophicum.com
14. ^ Writer in Residence. ( Memento from February 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) owf.at
15. ↑ Simone Winkelhog: Heinrich Böll Prize of the City of Cologne 2017 for Ilija Trojanow . City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations, press release, May 29, 2017; accessed on May 30, 2017.
16. ↑ english.sta.si
17. ^ Honorary award from the book trade for Ilija Trojanow . orf.at, June 7, 2018; accessed on June 7, 2018.
18. ↑ Hans-Jost Weyandt: Ost-Panorama: The torturer of socialism . In: Spiegel Online . 18th September 2015.
19. ↑ From literary life. The book of the week. DLF (Deutschlandfunk) book market. Contribution by Christoph Vormweg, Denis Scheck on the microphone