Michael Roes

Michael Roes (born 7 August 1960 in Rhede, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German writer and filmmaker. Roes was born in Rhede and grew up in Bocholt, North Rhine-Westphalia. He was a student of Philosophy, Anthropology and Psychology at the Free University of Berlin. He holds a Diploma in Psychology (1985) and a PhD in Philosophy (1991). His anthropological field research was conducted in Israel and the Palestinian territories (1987,1991), Yemen (1993–1994), the United States (Native Americans in the State of New York 1996-1997; The Social Construction of Race at the Mississippi1999) and Mali (1999). He has been a lecturer at universities in Berlin, Konstanz, Budapest and Bern. Roes was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Budapest (1994–1995). Roes was the guest professor at the Central European University, Budapest (2004; 2005/2006) At present Michael Roes is research fellow at the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures" of Freie Universität Berlin (2012 / 2013) Michael Roes is a novelist, poet, anthropologist and film-maker with an interest in interaction with the foreign. He has drawn inspiration from a wide and diverse range of cultures in his work, from the North American Indians, featured in the novel Der Coup der Berdache, to contemporary China in Die Fünf Farben Schwarz, and from Welsh mythology in Lleu Llaw Gyffes, to the Islamic world in Leeres Viertel, Weg nach Timimoun, Nah Inverness, and Geschichte der Freundschaft. His work is characterised by syncretism, experimentation and a multicultural flavour. It reveals a desire to engage with people from other cultures, and he has a vision of intercultural learning as an active exchange, an experience that must be sought, in which one must give as well as take. Leeres Viertel published in 1996, was the novel that earned Roes his reputation as one of the leading German Poeten des Fremden. In this novel the protagonist is an anthropologist travelling in Yemen researching traditional children's games.