Necati Öziri, born in one of the many grey corners of the Ruhr area (hell, hell, hell!), studied philosophy, German and contemporary German literature in Bochum, Istanbul and Berlin. He lives his third life in Berlin, writing, making theatre and sometimes being an intellectual, for which his 16-year-old self would probably slap him. Everything in his texts is true of course. Öziri was a Heinrich Böll Foundation fellow and taught formal logic at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum until he realised that logic doesn’t describe the world very well. Since then, he has tried to write not how the world is, but rather how it feels instead. He is a bitter enemy of cold, lactose and short biographies. As a playwright he writes for the Maxim Gorki Theatre, Nationaltheater Mannheim and Schauspielhaus Zürich. From 2014-2017, he was dramaturg and the artistic director of Studio Я at the Maxim Gorki Theatre. The Gorki celebrated the world premiere of his play GET DEUTSCH OR DIE TRYIN’ in 2017, the next year it was invited to the Heidelberger Stückemarkt festival for new plays. His play DIE VERLOBUNG IN ST. DOMINGO – EIN WIDERSPRUCH, co-produced with the Schauspielhaus Zürich and directed by Sebastian Nübling, was also shown at the Maxim Gorki Theatre.
Öziri meets up regularly with old versions of himself, they sit on the floor of government offices leafing through old school notebooks full of coffee stains and wait (but for what, actually?) or they chill on benches at the train station and offer him a joint. At the 45th Festival of German-Language Literature (Ingeborg Bachmann Prize), he won the Kelag and audience prizes. As a curator he was head of the International Forum at the Berliner Festspiele’s Theatertreffen festival. In Autumn 2023, his debut novel VATERMAL was released and selected for the short list for the German Book Prize. It will be premiered this season at the Maxim Gorki Theater under the direction of Hakan Savaş Mican. Reddening of the ears when angry or otherwise aroused.
