Necati Öziri

In the artist's words:

Necati Öziri, born in one of the many gray corners of the Ruhr ("Hölle Hölle Hölle!"), studied philosophy, German studies and contemporary German literature in Bochum, Istanbul and Berlin. He lives his third life in Berlin, writes, does theater and sometimes goes all Intelelli, for which his sixteen-year-old self would probably give him a slap. Of course, everything in his texts is true. Öziri was a scholarship holder of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and taught formal logic at the Ruhr University in Bochum until he realized that logic doesn't describe the world very well. Since then, he has tried to write not about how the world is, but how it feels. He is a bitter enemy of cold, lactose and short biographies.

As a playwright, he writes for the Maxim Gorki Theater, the Nationaltheater Mannheim and the Schauspielhaus Zürich. Öziri regularly meets up with old versions of himself, they sit on the floor of offices leafing through exercise books full of coffee stains and waiting (for what?) or they chill on benches at the train station and offer him a joint. At the 45th Days of German-Language Literature (Ingeborg Bachmann Prize), he won the Kelag Prize and the Audience Prize. As a curator, he also heads the International Forum of the Berliner Festspiele theater festival. His ears turn dark red when he is angry or otherwise agitated.