Necati Öziri
Necati Öziri, born in one of the many dreary corners of the Ruhr region (“Hell, hell, hell!”), studied philosophy, German language and literature, and modern German literature in Bochum, Istanbul and Berlin. He is now living his third life, writing, doing theatre and occasionally playing the intellectual – for which his sixteen-year-old self would probably give him a good slap. Öziri was a scholarship holder of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and taught formal logic at the Ruhr University Bochum until he realised that logic doesn’t describe the world particularly well. Since then, he has been trying to write not about how the world is, but how it feels. He is a bitter enemy of the cold, lactose and short biographies.
From 2014 to 2017, he was a dramaturg at the Maxim Gorki Theater, spending two of those years as artistic director of Studio Я. As a curator, he also headed the International Forum of the Theatertreffen at the Berliner Festspiele.
As a playwright, he has written for the Maxim Gorki Theatre, the National Theatre Mannheim – where he was also a resident playwright – and the Schauspielhaus Zürich, amongst others. Naturally, everything in his writing is always true. At the 45th Days of German-Language Literature (Ingeborg Bachmann Prize), he won the Kelag Prize and the Audience Award. His debut novel *Vatermal* (Ullstein/Claassen 2023) was shortlisted for the German Book Prize and awarded the Ruhr Literature Prize and the Hölderlin Prize. Öziri lives and works in Berlin. When angry or otherwise agitated, his ears turn dark red.
