Matthias Mala

Matthias Mala (27 December 1950 in Munich) is a German author and artist.

In 1977, he gave up his profession as a hotel and industrial kitchen furnisher and began his career as a freelance artist as a street painter. His interest in batik techniques led him into fabric design. He designed fabric patterns for furniture and decorations. He was also involved in the development of games. Among other things, he invented over 100 games for pad and pencil. The publication of these games in 1986 was the cornerstone of his writing career. Other games and children's books followed very quickly. Through the combination of games and mysticism in the form of fortune telling books, a further focal point of his writing activity arose. In particular, he devoted himself to white magic, which he called theurgy, about which he published several works through Verlag Peter Erd.

He also wrote radio plays, a theatre play and comic texts. As a poet he published anthologies. He also devotes himself to haiku poetry, where he contributes to anthologies at home and abroad. The main focus of his artistic work is traditional ink drawing.

So far Mala has published 70 books, most of which he has illustrated himself. Three radio plays have been produced and one play performed. There is a literary online project, Gegenüber ("Opposite"), in which he described the view of the house opposite him from the window of his study for a year at the turn of the millennium.

He has been a member of the Association of German Authors (Verband deutscher Schriftsteller or VS) since 1988. Since May 2008 he has also been a member of the PEN Centre Germany.[1] Furthermore, he was member of the board of VS Bavaria from 2005 to 2008.