Ilija Trojanow
Ilija Trojanow (Bulgarian: Илия Маринов Троянов, romanized: Iliya Marinov Troyanov; born 23 August 1965), also transliterated as Ilya Troyanov, is a Bulgarian-German writer, translator and publisher.
Ilija Trojanow

Harald Krichel · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Full name
- Илия Троянов.
- Born
- 1965. · Sofia.
- Nationality
- Germany, Bulgaria and Austria.
- Occupation
- linguist, writer, translator, editor, journalist and publisher.
- Fields
- prose.
- Education
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
- Known for
- The Collector of Worlds.
- Honours
- Mainz resident writer, Berliner Literaturpreis, Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, Literaturpreis der Universitätsstadt Marburg und des Landkreises Marburg-Biedenkopf, Carl-Amery-Literaturpreis and Leipzig Book Fair Prize/Fiction.
- Languages
- German.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Ilija Trojanow (Bulgarian: Илия Маринов Троянов, romanized: Iliya Marinov Troyanov; born 23 August 1965), also transliterated as Ilya Troyanov, is a Bulgarian-German writer, translator and publisher.
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Note VALÉORINE
Ilija Trojanow (born 1965) is an Austrian and Bulgarian editor, journalist and linguist, among other activities. The editor was born Илия Троянов in Sofia.
Ilija Trojanow studied at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The editor is a member of Verein Deutsche Sprache and worked in Berlin.
Works include The Collector of Worlds. Genres include prose. Languages used include German. Ilija Trojanow received Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, Berliner Literaturpreis and Carl-Amery-Literaturpreis, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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Authority files
wikidata · Q63309 · wikipedia · Ilija Trojanow
In this article
Life and literary career
Life and literary career
Ilija Trojanow studied at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The recorded working language is German. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are prose. Places of work recorded in the authority are Berlin. Works named in the authority record are The Collector of Worlds. Distinctions recorded are Mainz resident writer, Berliner Literaturpreis, Adelbert von Chamisso Prize and Literaturpreis der Universitätsstadt Marburg und des Landkreises Marburg-Biedenkopf.
Trojanow was born in Sofia, People's Republic of Bulgaria in 1965. In 1971, his family fled Bulgaria through the SFR Yugoslavia and Italy to West Germany, where they received political asylum. In 1972, the family travelled on to Kenya, where Ilija's father Marin had obtained a job as engineer. With one interruption from 1977 to 1981, Ilija Trojanow lived in Nairobi until 1984, and attended the German School Nairobi. After a stay in Paris, he studied law and ethnology at LMU Munich from 1985 to 1989. He interrupted these studies to found Kyrill-und-Method-Verlag in 1989, and after that Marino-Verlag in 1992, both of which specialised in African literature. In 1999 Trojanow moved to Mumbai and became intensely involved with Indian life and culture. He has lived in Cape Town, returned to Germany (Mainz), and then to Austria, where he currently resides in Vienna. In the 1990s Trojanow wrote several non-fiction and travel books about Africa, published an anthology of contemporary African literature and translated African authors into German. His first novel, Die Welt ist groß und Rettung lauert überall, appeared in 1996. In it he recounts his family's experiences as political refugees and asylum seekers. After that appeared the science fiction novel Autopol, created on the Internet as a "novel in progress," Hundezeiten, a travel account of a visit to his Bulgarian homeland, and books dealing with his experiences in India. His reportage Zu den heiligen Quellen des Islam describes a pilgrimage to Mecca. Since 2002, Ilija Trojanow has been member of the PEN centre of Germany. Among other awards he received the Bertelsmann Literature Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann competition in Klagenfurt in 1995, the Marburg Literature Prize in 1996, the Thomas Valentin Prize in 1997, the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize in 2000 and the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in the category of fiction for his novel Der Weltensammler. In 2015, he was awarded the 10-week London scholarship from the German Literature Fund, as Writer-in-Residence at Queen Mary University of London. Published in English as The Collector of Worlds in 2006, this novel was inspired by the biography and travel writings of British colonial officer Richard Francis Burton, some of whose travels Trojanow followed to places in present-day India, Saudi Arabia or Tanzania. In 2014, Trojanow participated in the writer in residence programme of the one world foundation in Sri Lanka.
Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
In 2013, Trojanow, who has also written on freedom of expression and surveillance of citizens by government agencies in Germany, had criticized the National Security Agency (NSA). In the same year, he was denied entry into the US for undisclosed reasons. He planned to attend an academic conference. Upon intervention by representatives of the P.E.N. and the German cultural institution Goethe-Institut, he could finally travel to New York at the end of 2013.
Works
Works
In Afrika, Munich, 1993 (with Michael Martin) Naturwunder Ostafrika, Munich, 1994 (with Michael Martin) Hüter der Sonne (Custodians of the Sun), Munich, 1996 (with Chenjerai Hove) Kenia mit Nordtansania, Munich, 1996 Die Welt ist groß und Rettung lauert überall, Munich, 1996 Autopol, Munich, 1997 Zimbabwe, Munich, 1998 Hundezeiten, Munich, 1999 Der Sadhu an der Teufelswand, Munich, 2001 An den inneren Ufern Indiens (Along the Ganges), Munich, 2003 Zu den heiligen Quellen des Islam (Mumbai to Mecca), Munich, 2004 Der Weltensammler (The Collector of Worlds), Munich, 2006 Indien. Land des kleinen Glücks, Cadolzburg, 2006 Gebrauchsanweisung für Indien, Munich, 2006 Die fingierte Revolution. Bulgarien, eine exemplarische Geschichte, Munich, 2006 Nomade auf vier Kontinenten, Frankfurt, 2007 Kampfabsage. Kulturen bekämpfen sich nicht – sie fließen zusammen, Munich, 2007 (with Ranjit Hoskote) Der entfesselte Globus, Munich, 2008 Sehnsucht, Freiburg, 2008 (edited by Fatma Sagir) Kumbh Mela. Das größte Fest der Welt, München 2008 (photographs by Thomas Dorn) Angriff auf die Freiheit. Sicherheitswahn, Überwachungsstaat und der Abbau bürgerlicher Rechte, Munich 2009 (with Juli Zeh) EisTau, Munich, 2011 (novel) Die Versuchungen der Fremde: Unterwegs in Arabien, Indien und Afrika, Munich, 2011 Confluences: Forgotten Histories From East And West (co-authored with Ranjit Hoskote), New Delhi, Yoda Press 2012 ISBN 978-81-906186-7-0 Der überflüssige Mensch ([1]), Salzburg, 2013 Macht und Widerstand, Frankfurt am Main 2015 Meine Olympiade, Frankfurt am Main, 2016 Nach der Flucht, Frankfurt am Main, 2017 Doppelte Spur, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2020, ISBN 978-3-10-491203-5
English translations
English translations
Custodians of the Sun Along the Ganges, translation by Ranjit Hoskote, Penguin Books India & Haus Publishing, 2005 Mumbai to Mecca, London, 2007, Haus Publishing The Collector of Worlds, London, 2008 The Lamentations of Zeno, translation by Philip Boehm of Eis Tau, Verso Books, New York, 2016
Publishing
Publishing
Afrikanissimo, Wuppertal, 1991 (with Peter Ripken) Das Huhn das schreit gehört dem Fremden (The screaming Chicken belongs to the Stranger), Munich, 1998 Döner in Walhalla (Doner in Valhalla), Cologne, 2000 Die Welt des Ryszard Kapuściński. Seine besten Geschichten und Reportagen, Frankfurt, 2007 Egon Erwin Kisch. Die schönsten Geschichten und Reportagen, Berlin, 2008
Translations into German
Translations into German
Sobornost. Kirche, Bibel, Tradition (Bible, church, tradition) by Georgij V. Florovskij, Munich 1989 Der Berg am Rande des Himmels (The Mountain on the Edge of the Sky) by Timothy Wangusa, Munich, 1989 Knochen (Bones) by Chenjerai Hove, Munich, 1990 Der Preis der Freiheit (The Price of Freedom) by Tsitsi Dangarembga, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1991 Buckingham Palace (Buckingham Palace, district six) by Richard Rive, Munich 1994 Die Sklaverei der Gewürze by Shafi Adam Shafi, Munich 1997 Der letzte Ausweis (Identity card) by F. M. Esfandiary, Frankfurt, 2009
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1965
Ilija Trojanow born at Sofia.
Film adaptations
The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, 2007, directed by Stefan Komandarev with Miki Manojlovic as Bai Dan and Carlo Ljubek as Alexander
Ilija Trojanow während einer Podiumsdiskussion mit Bürgermeister Olaf Scholz am 19. März 2014 im Thalia Theater in Hamburg
Mooskate

German writer Ilija Trojanow at the Leselenz 2015 in Hausach
Harald Krichel
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Марин Троянов: В модерните войни не страдат войските, а цивилното население. Bulgarian National Radio. 2020-09-30.
- 2.8 - Ilija Trojanow, Der Weltensammler: Separate Bodies, or: An Account of Intercultural Failure. cambridge.org.
- 3.London-Stipendium, Deutscher Literaturfonds. Retrieved 13 April 2026.
- 4.Writers in Residence, Queen Mary University of London. Retrieved 13 April 2026.
- 5.Fiction Book Review: The Collector of Worlds by Iliya Trojanow, trans. from the German by Will Hobson. Ecco $24.95 (464p) ISBN 978-0-06-135193-8. PublishersWeekly.com.
- 6.Cf. owf.at: writer in residence
- 7."Ilija Trojanow / Juli Zeh: Angriff auf die Freiheit – Gefangen im Datennetz.Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 15.09.2009
- 8."Ilija Trojanow und Juli Zeh: Offener Brief an Angela Merkel: Deutschland ist ein Überwachungsstaat.Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 25 July 2013
- 9."NSA-Kritiker Ilija Trojanow: Deutscher Schriftsteller darf nicht in die USA einreisen." Der Spiegel. 1 October 2013.
- 10."Einreiseverbot für Ilija Trojanow: Willkür und Freiheit.Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 1 October 2013
References
Citations
References
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reference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q63309: Ilija TrojanowWikimedia Foundation
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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