The transformation
When Simon Borowiak was still a woman, she was considered the best German satirist. She wrote for "Titanic", also for ChroniquesDuVasteMonde, then tore off the contact. , ,
Author's Papers adorn the living room and study of Simon Borowiak, These are multicolored handwritten summaries of the persons and actions of his two current books: "Who Wem Wen", Borowiak's brilliant new novel, and the next book he will begin today or tomorrow. Borowiak's paperboards look like abstract paintings, less like notes. Strong colors and broad arrows mark developments, contexts and conflicts.
If one wanted to portray the life of a real person with the help of a Borowiak authors cardboard, one would simplify strongly. Simon Borowiak's own life on an author's paperboard, read from left to right, would look something like this: Above the left third would be "Simone", and this third would be multicolored, but to the right would be more and more gloomy. Above the middle third would be "Surrounded by idiots, assholes, and saboteurs," it would be striking black or dark brown; and above the right would be "Simon," and it would turn to the side, brighter and brighter, where the present is.
Simone Borowiak was once considered "the only living German satirist" (so years ago the "Frankfurter Rundschau"), she was an editor at the then legendary satirical magazine "Titanic", author of the much loved comic classic "Mrs. Radish, the Czerni and me". In 1999, Simone Borowiak then published a humorous but fundamentally serious boarding novel called "Pavlov's Children", which was humorously and seriously perverted by the criticism. She wrote some wonderful texts for ChroniquesDuVasteMonde, about embarrassing kinship celebrations, or about the pain of children when the family moves. Until she no longer answered the phone, no longer answered mails and disappeared from the scene. "From the end of 1999 to the beginning of 2006, it was as if I had not been there," says Borowiak today. There were rumors in that time, first: illness, then: what about alcohol, then: psychiatry. Until, for outsiders out of serene, for Borowiak from not so serene sky, early 2006, the book "Alk - Almost a medical non-fiction book" appeared, author: Simon Borowiak. "A miracle of comedy, research and wisdom", called the "mirror" the book. Apart from this correct assessment, the book provided two more insights: Borowiak is now a man (see author's line) and has drunk like nothing good (see rest of the book).
Simon Borowiak is 43, he lives in the Hamburg district of Eimsbüttel in a cozy 40-square-meter apartment, quiet side street, intact neighborhood, smokes tax-favored filter cigarillos and buys sweets "like a hamster". In the living room and study, the computer where Borowiak wrote his novel "Who Wem Wen" tells the story of the great friendship between two former psychiatric inmates and their fateful weekend in the mountains. The bedroom has a piano that you can mute and play with headphones.
Simon Borowiak calls himself a "Chef happy". The "shit," that was his old life. Today he laughs about the psychiatry, which could not help him
Because Borowiak is a night person And in this way "even at two o'clock in the morning can still virtually break the shack," as Borowiak says. His favorite is and remains Beethoven, the sonatas. "There are things I've played thousands of times, and they're always new." New perspective, new sound. The moment the human being sitting in front of the piano changes even a jot, they change Perception and expression. "
Whether and how Simon Borowiak has changed is hardly to be judged by an outsider. What is certain is that in the years of his public absence he has experienced a great deal, including: various shades of alcohol abuse and an attempt to "get drunk", result: chronic alcoholism; lengthy stays in psychiatry; and a hard-won identity adaptation from Simone to Simon over many years.
It used to be colloquially called "sex change"In fact, it is not about "transforming" the biological sex of a human being, but rather of adapting the biological sex to the subjectively perceived identity, with hormones and operations. The prerequisite is a decision-making process lasting many years, with decisions that the so-called transidentian must make about himself and his identity, which must then be confirmed by psychiatric assessors. An elaborate, difficult thing, or, in Borowiak's words: "Obi does not exist!"
Borowiak grew up in Upper Hesse and Frankfurt, came with twelve to play the piano at the conservatory. Hardworking and talented, but increasingly unable to perform in public: the nerves. He attended a Catholic girls' school, which he had to leave because of "socialist standards": "I was always extremely insecure and shy, I was never on riot, but strangely, I've always attracted riot." When the homeroom teacher declared "tough chauvi" that the English had colonized India to "bring the culture" to the natives, Borowiak asked, "whether there could not have been economic reasons." When the pastor railed against communism and socialism and told the students to reject anything that ended in "ismos", Borowiak's "catechism" slipped out. Such incidents were still enough in the early eighties to leave a Catholic school. "I did not want to leave, I would always go back to a girls' school, only that they would not take me today, but I found that pleasant. Only the adults should not have been there." Simon Borowiak laughs a lot and warmly when he talks about this time.
The "second big punch" came when he had to quit the conservatory because he realized that he would never be able to become a soloist with his stage fright. "I could have become a music teacher, but that was out of the question for me, then preferably nothing, and then I stopped at 19. From one day to the other, I did not touch a piano and I could not hear any more piano sounds. I cried immediately. "
Three years after leaving the piano Borowiak decided to "make comic writing a profession". He came to the satire magazine "Titanic", got there "all possibilities and freedoms" and was supported by people like Robert Gernhardt, the poet, writer and "Titanic" co-founder: "That can only happen to a lucky guy." He was even able to start playing piano again. The role of alcohol in the years at and after "Titanic" he calls "constant". Borowiak always says "Alk," as if calling a close acquaintance by his nickname. "I've never been able to write even with half a glass of wine, I really have to be sober to write, which probably saved my life, otherwise I would have drunk without a break, but then there were the clear writing phases, and so on End of work then: shoot down. " Drunkenness came from what Borowiak calls "the existential": the search for and the finding of one's own identity. From about 1998 there was nothing except this topic: "I could not do anything else." At that time, after years of doubt, he decided to have the so-called "gender reassignment measures" taken, a decision that met with indifference and defiance in his immediate environment. Two people supported him in the following years: his editor and Dirk Bach, the comedian and actor, friend since 1994. Borowiak calls him "Dicki", as he calls the alcohol "Alk". "Dicki Bach always stayed on the ball, even though I did not call in. One evening he came to visit and I said to him, 'Dicki, you have to be very brave now - so I'll start every sentence, if anything The serious thing is - 'I'm a transident.' He looked at me, and suddenly he smiled, a loving smile, a dime-lessening smile of relief.We had already held long conversations about myself and my life, and he said, 'So you know, sweetheart, have that we can come up with it sooner! ' That gives you strength. "
For four or five years his hard and painful decision has been madebut she is not respected by those who should have helped him. He is detained by the responsible professionals, and it is said again and again: First, the Alk in the handle. The low point is reached when he undergoes a detoxification in psychiatry and learns that a good friend has intervened and prevented the beginning of his treatment. Although he had the date for the longed-for first injection of the manhood hormone testosterone. "I felt surrounded by idiots, assholes, and saboteurs, and then I started drinking suicidal."
All of this has come to a good end in the broadest sense, otherwise Borowiak would not be sitting here now, and otherwise he would not have been able to flash his psychiatric experiences with an angry sense of humor in Who's Who. He moved to Hamburg, and at the Eppendorf University Hospital he got the support and finally the treatment he had been fighting for years. Every four months, there is a "testo-syringe": "I go out there every time and think: four months! That can get me no reviewer from the body again for four months safe!" The changes would come "so slowly, but the depression and panic attacks were gone immediately." And he says very calmly, balancing: "Life at all has now become good again.As good as it was in childhood. "That then looks like, for example, that he shoots with his best friend Fritz" for seventy euros a tandem ", and so the two drive over the Ohlsdorf cemetery, Borowiak directs, because Fritz is blind and in the graveyard they get into a dispute over where the grave of the actor Gustaf Griindgens is, "and Fritz insisted on knowing, even from seeing times, that it must now be left here, and I roared, there is only rhododendron !, and then we were already in it. Enormous is that, very wonderful. "And what, for example, this friendship, he was once again" the boss happiness ".
Handwritten on the wall of Simon Borowiak's study and study is a Goethe quoteso large that it would dominate the room if it were not written in pale red letters, on the border of illegibility. "I know that nothing belongs to me, / only the thought that flows undisturbed / out of my soul / and every favorable moment / that makes me enjoy a loving skill / from scratch." Simon Borowiak says, "That's the point, the only thing I can rely on is my brainchild and what gives me happiness from the outside, otherwise ..." he pauses. Nothing, nothing. " The quote is his "favorite thing," he says. He writes it for years in every new apartment on the wall.
The book
Simon Borowiak's new novel "Who Wem Wen" is about a ski weekend that ends in disaster. The narrator and his best friend know each other from psychiatry, actually they are not socially acceptable. Your fellow travelers (a naive young journalist and a mendacious couple therapist and his wife) try at all costs to preserve the semblance of normality and holiday happiness. In addition, a mysterious friend unexpectedly discovers one lie after another. Borowiak describes this small group disaster with great wit: Deep tragedy and even deeper silliness lie very close together - a great entertainment novel (Eichborn, 184 p., 14.95 euros).
