Mario Giordano

Mario Giordano was born in 1963 in Munich and studied psychology and philosophy in Düsseldorf. His wide body of work as a writer includes novels (in print and as e-books), short stories, film scripts, books for children and adolescents as well as audio plays.Giordano’s debut came in 1992 with the children’s book »Die wilde Charlotte« (tr. Wild Charlotte) in which the main character becomes involved in a pirate adventure. His book for adolescents, »Der aus den Docks« (1997; tr. The Guy from the Docks) received the ‘Hans-im-Glück’ prize. This story about the disparate friendship between two boys in Hamburg’s harbour milieu who, together with a dog they have rescued from the River Elbe, discover clues of criminal misdeeds, was filmed by German television broadcaster ZDF titled »Der Hund aus der Elbe« (tr. The Dog from the Elbe) and won the 1999 German Television Award (Deutscher Fernsehpreis). In his youth book »Karakum«, named after the adventure film of the same name by Arend Agthe, Giordano already embarked on his other-way-round adaptation in 1993. His interest in taking a closer look at how »people find their way to one another and how people treat one another«, is something he also does in his works for adults like his novel »Das Experiment – Black Box« (1999; tr. The Experiment – Black Box). In order to examine psychologically the behaviour of people in extreme situations, in this book, voluntary test persons are divided in a simulated prison into »guards« and »prisoners«, however what begins as a role-play soon ends in a deadly serious situation. Giordano was also involved in the script for the cinema film »Das Experiment« (tr. The Experiment), which won the script prize at the Bavarian Film Awards in 2000. Together with Andreas Schlüter, he also regularly writes scripts for episodes of German TV crime series »Tatort«. Giordano’s cross-media narrative style earned him the commission in 2011 to write the end-of-the-world thriller »Apocalypsis«, which was released as a »Web Novel« with twelve episodes per series, telling its story not only in text form, but also accompanied by visual images, videos and mini-games that enhance the content in line with the author’s ideas about the subject of interactive storytelling: »We cannot develop new narrative forms at the drawing board, we just have to try them out.« Another matter that is important to Giordano is bringing famous artists and works of art closer to young people, whether in the form of small stories and pictures, like in »Der Mann mit der Zwitschermaschine« (2001; tr. The Man with the Chirping Machine) about the painter Paul Klee, or by examining historical art thefts and their background, for example, in his book »Bilderräuber« (2007; tr. Picture Robbers). He most recently compiled »1000 Gefühle, für die es keinen Namen gibt« (2013; tr. 1,000 Emotions for which there is no Name).Giordano is a visiting lecturer at the Film Academy of Baden-Württemberg and has been a mentor for TV series since 2007 at the Academy for Children’s media. The author lives in Cologne.

Der aus den Docks

Rowohlt

Hamburg, 1997

Das Experiment – Black Box

Rowohlt

Hamburg, 1999

Bilderräuber

Aufbau

Berlin, 2007

Apocalypsis I

Bastei Lübbe

Köln, 2011

1000 Gefühle, für die es keinen Namen gibt

Berlin Verlag

Berlin, 2013