Jovan Nikolić

Jovan Nikolić

Jovan Nikolic (born 7. December 1955 in Cacak , Yugoslavia ) is a living in Germany Roma - writer .

Life

Nikolic was the son of a Serbian Roma and a Serb from the majority population in a Roma settlement near the town of Čačak in Yugoslavia born. His father led a band as an alto saxophonist , in which his mother participated as a singer. With them he spent his early youth mostly traveling. There he received lessons from his mother. He later attended school in Čačak and then trained as a mechanical engineer from 1977 to 1979. During this time, in 1977, he published his first poems, and from 1979 he worked as a journalist for various Roma media. He received several literary prizes in Yugoslavia and his first international award at a literary competition in Lanciano . At the same time he criticized the Serbian great power ambitions in word and writing, especially against Slobodan Milošević . The NATO - bombing and Serbian cities during the Kosovo war prompted him in 1999 to emigrate and to apply for asylum as a persecuted writer. Since then, Jovan Nikolić has lived in Germany, most recently in Cologne , where he worked for the Rom e. V. works, especially in his school project for Roma children: "Amaro Kher" (= Our House), to bring their culture closer to the children. His partner Sigrun Reckhaus (Heinrich Böll Foundation) assists him in presenting his works and his son David also assists him in the opening of the book events for the city in Cologne in December 2011, because he never really learned German in a course . Now I speak a (!) Tarzan German .

Act

Nikolić writes poems, prose, song texts and plays in Romani , Serbo-Croatian and German. His lyrics, Bubamara , are set to music in the film comedy Black Cat, White Kater , which thematizes the living situation of Southeast European Roma and was awarded at the 1998 Venice Film Festival . In 2000 his play (with Ruždija Russo Sejdović) Kosovo mon amour was premiered at the Ruhr Festival. In 2004 the book of poems Zimmer mit Rad was published in German. In 2006 the translation of his work with short prose pieces White Raven, Black Lamm , which was selected for Cologne and the surrounding area in 2011 as a book for the city .

From 1999 to 2005 he was Vice President of the International Roma Union . Since 2000 he has been Vice Chairman of the International Romani Writers' Association (IRWA), which he co-founded. His aim is to initiate a library of Roma literature in the Roma language. He is also a member of the Serbian PEN Center.

Awards

• 2007 -Writer in Residence- Kulturkontakt Austria
• 2005 Foundation Künstlerdorf Schöppingen
• 2002 International House of Authors (Graz) (Cultural City Network)
• 2000 scholarship from the Academy of Arts , Literature Section
• 2000 PEN Center Germany
• 1999 Heinrich Böll Foundation , stay in the Heinrich Böll House , Langenbroich

Works (selection)

• White raven, black lamb . , Translation by Bärbel Schulte, Drava Verlag, Klagenfurt 2006, ISBN 3-85435-468-1 . (Special edition autumn 2011 for a book for the city )
• Room with a wheel, poems and prose. Drava Verlag, Klagenfurt 2004, ISBN 3-85435-430-4 .
• Soul catcher, noiselessly noisy. Short prose, Drava Verlag, Klagenfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-85435-644-8 .
• The orchestra of the women who left me. Translated by Elvira Veselinović. Drava Verlag, Klagenfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3-85435-793-3 .

(Complete list, including works that have not yet been translated, see author website)

Web links

• Literature by and about Jovan Nikolić in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Jovan Nikolić in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Jovan Nikolić , website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Mirko Schwanitz: I know that miracles exist. on: Deutschlandradio. April 22, 2005 (portrait of the writer Jovan Nikolic) (accessed May 16, 2011).
2. ↑ Jovan Nikolic. In: Socialist newspaper. 3/2010 (accessed May 2011).
3. ↑ ^{a b} Short biography of Jovan Nikolić on a page of the Republic of Serbia for the Leipzig Book Fair 2011 ( memento of the original from July 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed May 16, 2011).  
4. ↑ KStA from Dec. 5, 2011 Opening event Nikolic in the Schauspielhaus v. December 2nd ( Memento of the original from December 5th, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed December 2011) 
5. ↑ Susanne Neumann: Gentle and sensitive reading in Wesseling December 9th  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed December 2011)  
6. ↑ Martin Oehlen: The dictation of the inner voice. In: Kölner Stadtanzeiger. 14./15. May 2011, p. 28.
7. ^ Kurt Holl: New book by Jovan Nikolić. In: Nevipe - Rundbrief Rom eV No. 56, March 2011, pp. 8–9.
8. ^ ADK, Junge Akademie (accessed May 2011).