Ilija Trojanow

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

• 6.1 interviews

Life and work

Ilija Trojanov comes from a Bulgarian family who fled to Germany in 1971 over Yugoslavia and Italy, where she was granted political asylum. In 1972, the family moved on to Kenya, where his father had received an appointment as engineer. Interrupted by a stay in Germany in the years 1977-1981, in which he held until 1981, the State Landschulheim Marquartstein visited in 1979, Ilija Trojanov lived until 1984 in Nairobi. He attended the German School Nairobi, from which he graduated with the Abitur. This was followed by a stay in Paris, and from 1985 to 1989 he studied at the University of Munich Law and Anthropology. After he had broken this study, he founded in 1989 in Munich, the Cyril and Methodius - Verlag, 1992 the Marino- Verlag, both of which were specialized in African literature. 1999 moved to Mumbai Trojanov; In the following years he worked intensively with India. From 2003 to 2007 Trojanov lived in Cape Town; In 2007 he was town clerk of Mainz. He lives in Vienna.

Trojanov wrote in the 1990s, some non-fiction books and guide books about Africa, he edited an anthology of contemporary African literature and translated the works of African authors. In 1996 he published his first own novel The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, in which he processed the experiences of his family as political refugees and asylum seekers. This was followed by the science- fiction novel Autopol whose emergence was to pursue a " novel in progress" on the Internet, with Hundezeiten a travelogue about a reunion with the Bulgarian home as well as books about Trojanow experiences in India. In the report to the sacred sources of Islam, he described his pilgrimage to Mecca. In 2006 his much-praised novel about the British colonial officials and traveler Richard Francis Burton, The Collector of Worlds. He was awarded the 2006 Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair and was on the shortlist for the German Book Prize 2006.

Ilija Trojanov is a member of PEN Center, Germany since 2002. In November 2007 Trojanov was a lecturer at the University of Tübingen in the context of Tübingen poetry chair.

2007 turned Trojanov the film forward and never forget - ballad about Bulgarian hero who was seen in the same year on 3sat and ZDF. This documentation is based on interviews with political prisoners and witnesses who were gone on for years and decades in prisons and camps in Bulgaria. It is about the crimes and atrocities of the Bulgarian Communists and the lies in today's Bulgarian society.

In April 2008 Trojanov curated the literary festival " RE ASIA - Avatar. Asia narrator " in Berlin's House of World Cultures.

Written for the taz Trojanov alternating with several other authors since 2006, the weekly column " The Pothole ".

Since 2008, Ilija Trojanov editor of the book series Weltlese. Readers iron released into the unknown, in the Trojanov undiscovered authors and unusual or forgotten texts.

Published in 2009 Trojanov along with Juli Zeh the book attack on freedom. Obsession with security, surveillance state and the dismantling of civil rights. As part of the book launch, the two authors have criticized that the state continues to vordringe under the guise of counter-terrorism in the privacy of its citizens.

2010 Trojanov was curator of the 1st Munich Literature Festival.

In 2013 he was denied in temporal association with writer protests against the practices of U.S. secret services ( monitoring and espionage 2013) an entry into the U.S. at a German scholar Congress. After the writers' association PEN and the Goethe Institute had used for the lifting of the travel ban, Trojanov was allowed to enter the United States. On November 14, 2013, he participated at the Goethe Institute in New York in a debate with the journalist Liesl Schillinger and the American PEN President Suzanne Nossel on " Surveillance and the naked New World ".

Awards

Works (selection)

Authorship

• In Africa, Munich 1993 ( Photographs by Michael Martin)
• Natural wonders of East Africa, Munich 1994 ( Photographs by Michael Martin)
• Guardian of the sun. Encounters with Zimbabwe's elders - Roots and visions of African wisdom ( with Chenjerai Hove ), Munich 1996
• Kenya to northern Tanzania, Munich 1996
• The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, Munich 1996
• Autopol, Munich 1997
• Zimbabwe, Munich 1998
• Hundezeiten. Return to a foreign country, Munich 1999 (2006 revised as The fake revolution published )
• The sadhu at the Devil's Wall, Munich 2001
• At the inner shores of India, Munich 2003
• Among the sacred sources of Islam, Munich 2004
• Masque, libretto for the opera by Hans Huyssen, 2005
• The Collector of Worlds, Munich 2006
• India. Land of small happiness, Cadolzburg 2006
• Instructions for India, Munich 2006
• The fake revolution. Bulgaria, an exemplary story, Munich 2006
• Nomad on four continents, Frankfurt am Main 2007
• Kampfabsage. Cultures fight not - they flow together ( with Ranjit Hoskoté ), Munich 2007
• The unleashed globe, Munich 2008
• Longing, Freiburg 2008 ( compiled by Fatma Sagir )
• Kumbh Mela. The largest festival in the world, Munich 2008 ( Photographs by Thomas Dorn )
• Remotely close. Tübingen poetry chair ( with Feridun Zaimoglu ), Künzelsau 2008
• Attack on freedom. Obsession with security, surveillance state and the dismantling of civil rights ( with Juli Zeh ), Munich 2009
• Oberammergau. Richard F. Burton on a visit to the Passion Play, English ( by Richard Francis Burton) and German, from the English by Susann Urban, Hamburg 2010
• Feeling I see the world. The records of the blind world traveler James Holman ( with Susann Urban), München 2010
• The seized Zoo. With four drypoint etchings by Detlef force. Maximilian -Gesellschaft, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3921743607
• EisTau. Novel. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23757-5
• The temptations of strangers: On the road in Arabia, India and Africa. Malik Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3890294049
• City of Books (Photography by Anja Bohnhof ), Langen / Müller, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3784432939
• The superfluous man, Residenz Verlag, St. Pölten 2013
• Where Orpheus buried (Photography by Christian Muhrbeck ), Munich 2013

Editorship

• Africanissimo. A cheerful and sensual reading book ( with Peter Ripken ), Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1991
• The chicken that cries heard the stranger, Munich 1998
• Doner 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 ( Edition Weltlese )
• FM Esfandiary: Identity Card, Frankfurt am Main 2009 (Edition Weltlese )
• Marcal Aquino: Flee. And take the lady with, Frankfurt am Main 2009 (Edition Weltlese )
• Herman Charles Bosman: Mafeking Road, Frankfurt am Main 2010 (Edition Weltlese )
• Edwidge Danticat: The Prodigal Father, Frankfurt am Main 2010 (Edition Weltlese )
• John Steinbeck: Russian Travel, Frankfurt am Main 2011 (Edition Weltlese )
• Behind the red sun. The most beautiful adventure stories, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-351-03369-9
• Indra Sinha: People Animal, Frankfurt am Main 2011 (Edition Weltlese )
• David Malouf: The bravest of the sons, Frankfurt am Main 2012 ( Edition Weltlese )
• Victor Serge: The great disillusionment. The case Tulajew, Frankfurt am Main 2012 ( Edition Weltlese )
• Anarchist worlds Edition Nautilus Verlag Lutz Schulenburg, Hamburg 2012
• Peter Fröberg Idling: Pol Pot's Smile, Frankfurt am Main 2013 ( Edition Weltlese )
• Olivia Manning: Beyond Innocence, Frankfurt am Main 2013 ( Edition Weltlese ), ISBN 978-3-864-06027-4.
• Percival Everett: God's Country, Frankfurt am Main 2014 ( Edition Weltlese )

Translations

• Timothy Wangusa: The mountain on the edge of the sky, Munich 1989
• Georgy V. Florovskij: Sobornost. Church, Bible, tradition, Munich 1989
• Chenjerai Hove: bone, Munich 1990
• Tsitsi Dangarembga: The Price of Freedom, Reinbek 1991
• Richard Rive: Buckingham Palace, Munich 1994
• FM Esfandiary: Identity Card, Frankfurt am Main 2009
• Aravind Adiga: Last Man in Tower, Munich 2011

Film adaptations

• The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, 2007 by Stefan Komandarev (director) with Miki Manojlovic as Bai and Dan Carlo Ljubek as Alexander