Stephan Kroener

Stephan Kroener is a freelance journalist and holds a PhD in history. In his readings, he blends journalistic storytelling with creative non-fiction of a literary standard. His primary aim is to shed light on people’s lives. He loves research, whether in archives or on location; despite his fear of heights, he will sometimes clamber up crooked church towers or lighthouses; he sails to the island of the whalers (see photo) on a historic steamboat with a crew of pensioners; and he descends into mines with a Christmas stollen under his arm. At Lake Tegernsee he sought out the traces of Bob Marley, in Bayreuth those of Angela Merkel, and at a castle in Upper Swabia the “birth certificate” of the USA. In Colombia, his second home, he flew to a guerrilla camp on a “raisin bomber” and accompanied migrants from the Ecuadorian border into the jungles of the Darién. His as yet unpublished novel “Orly, like the airport in Paris” tells the story of a homeless man in Bogotá searching for his German roots and for himself. He is currently writing about the rise and fall of an old festival hotel high above Bayreuth.

www.torial.com/stephan.kroener

(Photo © the artist)