*German-Bulgarian Writer Banned From US For Criticizing NSA
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The German writer of Bulgarian origin, Iliya Troyanov (German spelling: Ilija Trojanow) was born in Sofia in 1965. In 1971, his family fled Communist Bulgaria through Yugoslavia and Italy, and received political asylum in West Germany.
In 1972, Troyanov's father, who was an engineer, got a job in Kenya, and Troyanov lived there between 1972 and 1984 (with one interruption in 1977-1981) studying at a German-language school.
Troyanov studied law and ethnology at Munich University in 1985-1989. In 1989 and 1992, he founded the Kyrill-und-Method and Marino publishing houses, which specialize in African literature.
In 1999, Troyanov moved to Mumbai, India, for several years. He has also lived in Cape Town, South Africa, and in Mainz Germany, and 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, "The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner", which includes many autobiographical motives, 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," "Dog Times", a travel account of a visit to his Bulgarian homeland, and books dealing with his experiences in India. His reportage "To the Holy Sources of Islam" describes a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Since 2002 Iliya Troyanov has been a member of the PEN centre of the Federal Republic 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 Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair in the category of fiction for his novel "The Collector of Worlds" in 2006.
The Collector of Worlds, and his latest book, Nomad on Four Continents, deal with the life of the 19th century British adventurer Sir Richard Burton.
In 2008, Troyanov's novel, "The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner", was made into a movie by a Bulgarian-led international team of directors and actors; the movie has won numerous awards across Europe, and has turned into one of the most successful Bulgarian movie productions in the last two decades.
Troyanov's novels are published in Bulgarian by Ciela Soft & Publishing Jsc.
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