Ilija Trojanow
Speaker
Ilija Trojanow was born in Bulgaria in 1965. In 1971, his parents fled with him across Yugoslavia and Italy to Germany, where they received political asylum in Munich. One year later, the family moved to Kenya. From 1972 to 1984, Ilija Trojanow lived in Nairobi – with one three-year stay in Germany during that interval.
From 1984 to 1989, he studied Law, Ethnology and - by his own admission - “Average” at the Maximilians University in Munich, and travelled across Africa at the beginning of the 1990s. He wrote his first book at this time, entitled In Africa. The Myth and Everyday Life of East Africa (Marino 1993). In 1998 Trojanow moved to Bombay. From India, he wrote articles and essays for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, among other newspapers. In 1999, he published an essay about his return to Bulgaria, entitled Dog Days. Homecoming in a Foreign Land (Carl Hanser). In 2001 he undertook a three-month journey by foot through Tanzania in the footsteps of the English explorer and Orientalist Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890).
Trojanow wrote Along the Ganges (Hanser 2003, English translation 2005) after he had travelled along the river, journeying from its mouth onward to the large cities. He finally took part in the Hajj, and reports on this in his book From Mumbai to Mecca: A Pilgrimage to the Holy Sites of Islam (Piper 2004, English translation 2007). His massive novel The Collector of Worlds was published in 2006 (English translation 2008) and won the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, in addition to spending months on the bestseller lists in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Trojanow has been awarded various literary prizes, among others the 1995 Bertelsmann Literature Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition, the 1996 Marburg Literature Prize, the 2000 Adalbert von Chamisso Prize, the 2007 Berlin Literature Prize, and the 2007 Mainz City Writer Prize. His books have been translated into numerous languages.
From 1984 to 1989, he studied Law, Ethnology and - by his own admission - “Average” at the Maximilians University in Munich, and travelled across Africa at the beginning of the 1990s. He wrote his first book at this time, entitled In Africa. The Myth and Everyday Life of East Africa (Marino 1993). In 1998 Trojanow moved to Bombay. From India, he wrote articles and essays for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, among other newspapers. In 1999, he published an essay about his return to Bulgaria, entitled Dog Days. Homecoming in a Foreign Land (Carl Hanser). In 2001 he undertook a three-month journey by foot through Tanzania in the footsteps of the English explorer and Orientalist Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890).
Trojanow wrote Along the Ganges (Hanser 2003, English translation 2005) after he had travelled along the river, journeying from its mouth onward to the large cities. He finally took part in the Hajj, and reports on this in his book From Mumbai to Mecca: A Pilgrimage to the Holy Sites of Islam (Piper 2004, English translation 2007). His massive novel The Collector of Worlds was published in 2006 (English translation 2008) and won the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, in addition to spending months on the bestseller lists in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Trojanow has been awarded various literary prizes, among others the 1995 Bertelsmann Literature Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition, the 1996 Marburg Literature Prize, the 2000 Adalbert von Chamisso Prize, the 2007 Berlin Literature Prize, and the 2007 Mainz City Writer Prize. His books have been translated into numerous languages.