Kolja Mensing

Kolja Mensing (born March 4, 1971 in Oldenburg ) is a German writer and literary critic .

He grew up in Westerstede and studied political science and history in Oldenburg and Münster from 1990 to 1995 . He has lived in Berlin since 1995 . From 1999 to 2003 he worked as a cultural editor for taz . He is a journalist and writer. Since 2011 he has been working as a literary editor at Deutschlandfunk Kultur .

In 2002 Kolja Mensing published his autobiographical essay How do I get out of here? , in which he talked about growing up in the German provinces . A volume with short stories was published in 2007 under the title Minibar . Kolja Mensing realized two interactive documentary film projects together with Florian Thalhofer : 13th floor. Stories from the high-rise (2004) and 13terShop (2007). To work on 13terShop , Kolja Mensing and Florian Thalhofer lived in a shopping center for a month. Together with the director and screenwriter Robert Thalheim , Kolja Mensing wrote the play Moschee DE on the topic of the building history of the Khadija Mosque in Berlin-Heinersdorf , which premiered on February 27, 2010 at the Hanover Theater.

In 2011 his autobiographical essay novel The Legends of the Fathers, about the story of his paternal grandfather, Jósef Kózlik, was published. Sandra Kegel wrote in the FAZ : "It is this slow groping, this growing discrepancy between one's own experiences and the memories of the hero from the bedtime stories of his childhood that captivates." In 2015, a completely revised paperback edition of the book was published.

In 2018 the autobiographical essay novel “Fels” was published, as it were as a continuation, about the life and death of the Jewish cattle dealer Albert Fels, who in old age hired out on the farm of his maternal grandmother. In the Tagesspiegel it was said: “A very carefully researched little book that shows how family stories can suddenly change, not least with the help of the passage of time, into a veritable piece of literature - and in the end not only more worth reading than many a bulky novel, but moreover more instructive than some historical works. "

Works

• Fels , Roman, Verbrecher Verlag, 2018. ISBN 978-3-95732-340-8
• The Legends of the Fathers , Roman, Verbrecher Verlag , 2015. (completely revised new edition). ISBN 978-3-95732-086-5
• The legends of the fathers , novel, Aufbau Verlag, 2011. ISBN 978-3-351-02734-6
• (with Robert Thalheim ) mosque DE . Verbrecher Verlag , Berlin 2011. ISBN 978-3-940426-69-7 (premiered at the Schauspielhaus Hannover on February 27, 2010)
• (with Florian Thalhofer ) 13th shop. A Korsakov film. Book & DVD-Rom . mairisch Verlag , Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-938539-07-1
• Mini-bar. Narratives . Verbrecher Verlag , Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-935843-81-X
• (with Florian Thalhofer) 13th floor. Stories from the skyscraper. An interactive documentary . Verbrecher Verlag , Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-935843-53-4
• How do I get out of here? Growing up in the province . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-462-03165-1 (Revised new edition: Verbrecher Verlag , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940426-32-1 )

Awards

• Residency at Villa Decius in Krakow, Poland (2005)
• Working grant for Berlin authors, granted by the Berlin Senate Department for Science, Research and Culture (2005)
• Prenzlauer Berg Literature Prize (Berlin 2005)
• Residence grant in the artist village Schöppingen (2006)
• IBM New Media Award (2006)
• Culture Prize of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover (2010)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ World premiere Schauspiel Hannover: Moschee DE. A scenic reconstruction. ( Memento of November 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Schauspiel Hannover, February 27, 2010. Retrieved on April 12, 2015
2. ↑ Sandra Kegel: Kolja Mensing: The legends of the fathers: Only the poppy seeds taste sweet . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed January 3, 2019]).
3. ↑ How does memory work? Retrieved January 3, 2019 . 

Web links

• Literature by and about Kolja Mensing in the catalog of the German National Library
• 13th floor. Stories from the skyscraper
• 13th shop. A Korsakov film