Honored Persons

 

Ilija Trojanow

Ilija Trojanow comes from a Bulgarian family who fled to Germany in 1971 via Yugoslavia and Italy. They received political asylum in Germany. In 1972, the family moved on to Kenya, where the father had been hired as an engineer. Interrupted by a stay in Germany in the years 1977 to 1981, in which he visited the State Landschulheim Marquartstein from 1979 to 1981, Ilija Trojanow lived in Nairobi until 1984. He attended the German School Nairobi from which he graduated with a high school diploma. This was followed by a stay in Paris. From 1985 to 1989 he studied law and ethnology at the University of Munich. After he had discontinued this study, he founded in 1989 in Munich, the Cyril-and-Method-Verlag, 1992, the Marino-Verlag, both 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 writer-in-residence at Mainz. He currently lives in Vienna for the most part. Trojanow writes non-fiction books, novels, travel guides, anthologies with African contemporary literature - a small section of his wide range of work also includes film's (such as "Forward and never forget - ballad about Bulgarian heroes"), columns (taz) and the publication of book series (World Reading, reading tours into the unknown) in which Trojanow publishes undiscovered authors and unusual or forgotten texts. Since 1995, Ilija Trojanow has been collecting literature awards. In 2018 he will be awarded the honorary prize of the Austrian book trade for tolerance in thought and action. In 2017 he gave the main speach at the Krimml Peace Dialogue.