Max Czollek


Max Czollek is a German lyric-poet, writer and stage performer. He is a member of the "G13" authors' collective.

Life

Max Czollek was born in Berlin where he attended the :de:Jüdisches Gymnasium Moses Mendelssohn|Jewish Upper School, passing his school finals in 2006. During his time at school he took a year abroad in Texas. Between 2007 and 2012 he studied political sciences at Berlin. Then, from 2012 till 2016 he worked on his doctorate at the Center for Research on Antisemitism and at Birkbeck, University of London. He was supported with a stipend from the :de:Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk|Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk. Since 2016 he has been a member of the producers' collective "Jalta – Positionen zur jüdischen Gegenwart".
Czollek has been part of the lyric-poetry collective G13 since 2009. In 2013 he initiated the international "Babelsprech" lyric-poetry project, in order to network a young German language "lyric scene". He himself is the German "curator" of "Babelsprech International" between 2016 and 2018.
Since the 2013/2014 he has teamed up with the novelist Deniz Utlu to organise the literature series "Gegenwartsbewältigung" at the Maxim Gorki Theater. Together with "Sasha"/"Саша" Marianna Salzmann he was co-instigator of the "Disintegration Congress" on contemporary Jewish thinking and of the "Radical Jewish Arts Days". During 2016/2017 he is co-leader with Esra Kücük of the Gorki Theatre's "Young Berlin Council" project.
Czollek's poetry has been published in a number of literary journals, notably those with their focus on younger authors, such as :de:Edit |"Edit", :de:Belletristik |"Belletristik", "Aviv" and "poet". His works have also been included in recent anthologies, notably the 2015 "Lyrik von Jetzt 3" and the :de:Jahrbuch der Lyrik|2017 "Jahrbuch der Lyrik". Poems by Czollek have been translated into several foreign languages.