Martin Jankowski

Martin Jankowski (* 1965 in Greifswald) is a German writer and poet.

Life

He grew up in Gotha and was part of the GDR's oppositional movement and the legendary Monday demonstrations (that lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall) of the 1980s in Leipzig as singer and poet. Besides numerous songs, poems and narrations he has also published texts for the stage, essays and one novel. He currently lives in Berlin. Since 2000 he worked as author and curator for several museums and international art projects, amongst them the legendary Heinz Berggruen Collection and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. In the spring of 2003 he was guest lecturer for new German literature in Indonesia at the Universitas Indonesia. From 2001 to 2004 he was also involved in the coordination of the internationales literaturfestival berlin and is now responsible for each year’s “Specials” section of the festival. From November 2003 to May 2004, he was chairman of the Deutsch-Indonesisches Kulturinstitut in Berlin and since May 2004 hosts the “Literatursalon am Kollwitzplatz“ for the literary magazine ndl. Since November 2005, he is also chairman of the Berliner Literarische Aktion e.V.. In 2006, he received the Alfred-Döblin-grant of the Deutsche Akademie der Künste and undertook a reading tour through Indonesia sponsored by the IndonesiaTera foundation and the German embassy. From 2007 to 2010 he also hosted the “Literatursalon Mitte” in Berlin’s historical quarter Scheunenviertel. Besides these numerous activities, Jankowski regularly works as editor and theatre director. For 2011 he directs the "Jakarta Berlin Arts Festival" in Berlin.

Works

• Rabet oder Das Verschwinden einer Himmelsrichtung. Roman. München: via verbis, 1999. ISBN 3933902037
• Frische Knochen aus Banyuwangi - the poems of Agus R. Sarjono (translated into German by Berthold Damshäuser and Inge Dumpél, edited and with an essay by Martin Jankowski, 2003). ISBN 3-933149-31-2
• Seifenblasenmaschine – Berliner Szenen. Narrations and short stories. Hamburg; Berlin: Schwartzkopff Buchwerke, 2005. ISBN 3-937738-32-0
• Indonesisches Sekundenbuch. Poems, bilingual (Indonesian-German), translation by Katrin Bandel, Indonesian adaptation by Dorothea Rosa Herliany, introduction by Goenawan Mohamad, Magelang (Java): Indonesiatera, 2006. ISBN 929-775-001-x
• Mäuse. Short novel, SuKuLTur Verlag, Schöner Lesen No. 53, Berlin 2006. ISBN 3-937737-60-x
• Der Tag, der Deutschland veränderte - 9. Oktober 1989. Essay. Series published by the Sächsischer Landesbeauftragter für die Stasiunterlagen No. 7, Leipzig 2007. ISBN 978-3-374-02506-0
• U(DYS)TOPIA - das Auftauchen von Mythen, Märchen und Legenden in der Gegenwart Regiospectra Berlin, 2010, ISBN 978-3-940132-14-7.

Awards

• open mike 1993
• author’s grant by the Stiftung Kulturfonds 1996
• working grant of the Berlin Senate 1997
• annual award of the DVLG (Jahrespreis für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte der DVLG) 1998
• grant (Alfred Döblin Stipendium) of the German Akademie der Künste 2006
• working grant of the Berlin Senate 2007
• grant for cultural exchange 2008

Literature

• Grub, Frank Thomas: 'Wende' und 'Einheit' im Spiegel der deutschsprachigen Literatur (5.3.7. pp.). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2003.
• Grant, Janet L.: Post-Prenzlauer Berg in: Exberliner No. 53. Berlin, 2007.
• Kürschners Deutscher Literaturkalender, K.G. Saur Verlag, Berlin, 2006/2007.

External links

• Literatur by and on Martin Jankowski in the catalogue of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
• http://www.martin-jankowski.de
• http://www.berliner-literarische-aktion.de
• http://www.poetenladen.de/martin-jankowski.htm
• http://www.jakarta-berlin.de