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David Chotjewitz (born 14 May 1964 in Berlin) is a German writer and theatre director who lives in Hamburg.
In 1967, his family moved to Rome, where Chotjewitz grew up until 1973. He attended the Italian primary school and later the German school of Rome. In 1973, he moved with his parents and brother to the small north Hessian village of Kruspis. He attended school in Bad Hersfeld until 1981, but left without receiving his diploma.
In 1982, he received formal vocational training from the print publisher Weismann in Munich and in spring of 1984, from the Rowohlt publishing house in Reinbek. He was married in 1983 and his daughter, Sarah, was born the same year. His first literary book publication, the collection, Frühreif - Texte aus der Plastiktüte, appeared in the spring of 1984. He wrote his first radio play, Geduld Holfstätter oder Der Erste Kuß, in 1987. In 1988, he began to translate a novel by Norma Klein, for the Frankfurt publisher, Alibaba . In the 1990s, Chotjewitz worked with independent theatre companies in Hamburg and as an assistant director at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, as well as at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
From 1992 to 1994, he studied with the Javanese dance and performance teacher, Suprapto Suryodarmo in Java - see Amerta Movement. In the following years, he co-operated with the Healing Theatre in Cologne and the Julia Pascal Company in London. In 1994, his novel about Albert Einstein, Das Abenteuer des Denkens (The Adventure of Thinking), was published and received a lot of attention. It has been reprinted several times, last by the Hamburg publisher, Carlsen Verlag. His award-winning novel for young people, Daniel Halber Mensch, was also published in the United States by an imprint of Simon & Schuster as Daniel Half Human and has been quite successful there.
In 1999, Chotjewitz produced his first theatre work, Der einäugige Karpfen, based on a story by Kenzaburō Ōe. In 2000, he founded the theatre project, "Theater: Playstation", which staged musical theatre projects such as BLUT on the DANCEFLOOR (BLOOD on the DANCE FLOOR, in a techno-disco) and STIRB, POPSTAR, STIRB (POPSTAR MUST DIE), in cooperation with Kampnagel Hamburg.
In the summer of 2007, he started the project, BEHÖRDE für LIEBLINGSLIEDER (MINISTRY for FAVORITE SONGS). Projects planned for 2008 include a new biographical novel about the young Goethe and a project with youths in Colombia.
Chotjewitz has received awards such as the literature prize of the city Hamburg in 1996, a grant from the Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung in 1997, and a grant from the Stuttgarter Schriftstellerhaus in 2006. "Daniel Half Human" received in the USA, among others, a Mildred L. Batchelder Award (Honor Book). His novel Crazy Diamond , about a teenaged rockstar who dies under unclear circumstances, was published in the United States in April 2008.
Doris Orgel (from Daniel Half Human and the Good Nazi)
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