Ilija Trojanow

Ilija Trojanow comes from a Bulgarian family who fled to seek political asylum in Germany via Yugoslavia and Italy in 1971. In 1972 the family moved to Kenya for ten years. After stopovers in Germany Trojanow lived in Paris and in 1999 moved to Mumbai, India. From 2003 to 2007 he lived in Capetown. Initially he wrote non-fiction, travel guides and anthologies about Africa. His first novel, The World is Wide and Salvation Lurks Everywhere, appeared in 1996.

Alongside translations there followed accounts of travels in Bulgaria and India, a reportage about his pilgrimage to Mecca and, last year, the film Vorwärts und nie vergessen. Ballade über bulgarische Helden. (Onwards without forgetting. Ballads of Bulgarian heroes.) The recipient of several awards, he now lives in Vienna.