Ilja Trojanow receives Grimm Professorship 2014 from the University of Kassel

Trojanow has repeatedly intervened in the current debate about surveillance practices, which led to a short-term ban on entry to the USA in 2013. Trojanow is an author for whom "foreign" cultures have become an essential part of his own literary work. Thus, in times defined by migration and cultural exchange, his life and work show him to be an international and intercultural writer. Born in Sofia in 1965, his family fled to West Germany in 1971 for political reasons. He grew up in Kenya, lived since 1999 in Mumbai/India, then in Cape Town/South Africa, today in Vienna.

Commitment to civil rights

These experiences have shaped not only his fiction, including his major novel "Der Weltensammler" (2007), but also his non-fiction books, travel guides, etc.
His extensive oeuvre includes as recent publications "EisTau" (novel), "Der überflüssige Mensch" and "Wo Orpheus begraben liegt". Together with Juli Zeh, he published the book "Angriffe auf die Freiheit. Security mania, surveillance state and the dismantling of civil rights". For the novel "Der Weltensammler" he received the prize of the Leipzig Book Fair. Among the numerous honors bestowed on his work are the Berlin Literature Prize, the Adalbert Chamisso Prize, the Prize of the Literature Houses, and the Carl Amery Literature Prize.

Trojanow's public events in June

Ilya Trojanov will hold the Grimm Professorship in June 2014. On June 2, he will give a lecture, "Of Power and Resistance." It is about 'the third repetition of history or the intersection of novel project and political engagement'. His seminar on June 3 will be titled "Evil in Literature" and will discuss the difficulties of making evil literary. On June 4, Trojanow will read (with recorded novel music) from his latest novel "EisTau." Events will begin at 6 p.m. each night. The location will be announced. All events are free and open to the public.

The Brothers Grimm Professorship is not to be confused with the Research Professorship "The Works and Activities of the Brothers Grimm" at the University of Kassel. This six-year endowed professorship is held by Grimm researcher Prof. Dr. Holger Ehrhardt.

The Kassel Grimm Professorship, on the other hand, has been awarded for over 20 years by the University of Kassel with the support of the Kasseler Sparkasse. In this way, the university in northern Hesse aims to contribute to a lively exchange between literary studies and contemporary literature and, in particular, to provide a public forum for writing in the border areas between literary genres. The most recent holders of the Grimm Professorship were Volker Schlöndorff (2011), Uwe Timm (2012), and Sibylle Lewitscharoff in 2013.

A picture of Ilja Trojanow is available from Carl Hanser Verlag, Ms. Ullmann:
verena.ullmann[at]hanser[dot]de

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Peter Seibert
University of Kassel
FB 2 - Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften
Institute for German Studies

Department of Modern German Literature
E-Mail: sturm[at]uni-kassel[dot]de (Sekr.)

Sebastian Mense
University of Kassel
Communication, Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +49 (0)561 804-1961
E-Mail: presse@uni-kassel.de