Jan Weiler was born on October 28, 1967 in Düsseldorf. In 1970, his family moved to the suburb of Meerbusch, where he graduated from the Meerbusch municipal grammar school in 1988.
During his school years, he began writing for the Meerbusch local section of the Westdeutsche Zeitung as a freelancer.
After completing his civilian service, Jan Weiler began working as a copywriter in 1990. He worked at Grey Düsseldorf, where he mainly wrote radio and TV commercials for clients such as Procter & Gamble, Brandt-Zwieback and Visa. In 1992, he moved to Ogilvy & Mather, where he worked for Ferrero, Langnese, Erco and Wilkinson, among others.
Jan Weiler was accepted to the German School of Journalism in 1993. After completing his training, he completed an internship at the Süddeutsche Zeitung magazine and appeared for a few months as a presenter on the TV program “Live aus dem Schlachthof” on Bavarian television.
In January 1995, he became an editor at SZ-Magazin. He resigned in 1998, but kept a contract with SZ-Magazin and founded the agency Anzinger, Weiler, Wüschner, Rasp with Claudia Anzinger, Gernot Wüschner and Markus Rasp. The AWWR agency has worked (and in some cases still works) for the tageszeitung, Burda-Verlag, Holzbrinck-Verlag, Münchner Rück, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and Zeitraum-Möbel, among others.
In addition to his work at AWWR and SZ-Magazin, Jan Weiler wrote for various publications at the time, including page 3 of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Woche, Spiegel-Special, Cosmopolitan and Männer-Vogue, as well as for various agencies such as Factor Design.
In May 2000, Jan Weiler was appointed editor-in-chief of SZ-Magazin, for which he gave up his shareholder contract with AWWR.
His debut novel “Maria, ihm schmeckt’s nicht” was published by Ullstein in the fall of 2003.
Jan Weiler has been a freelance writer since May 2005. He writes novels, columns, screenplays, radio plays and occasionally reportages (see bibliography and discography). He also works as a lecturer at the German School of Journalism in Munich. His books have reached a total circulation of more than three million copies (as of February 2018).
From September 2007 to March 2013, Jan Weiler ran the Vinoteca Marcipane in Münsing on Lake Starnberg together with chef Corbinian Kohn. In August 2009, this collaboration resulted in “The Marcipane Cookbook.”
The film adaptation of his first book “Maria, ihm schmeckt’s nicht” was released on August 6, 2009. The main roles are played by Christian Ulmen, Lino Banfi and Mina Tander. The film was directed by Neele Leana Vollmer, the screenplay was written by Daniel Speck and Jan Weiler. Production company: Claussen + Wöbke + Putz, distributor: Constantin. The film reached over 1.3 million moviegoers (as of October 20, 2009).
Since August 2009, his column series “Mein Leben als Mensch” (My life as a human being), which was previously published in the magazine “Stern”, has appeared in “Welt am Sonntag” and exclusively on Jan Weiler’s own website. The best texts from the episodes printed in Stern were published as a book on September 18, 2009 under the title “Mein Leben als Mensch” by Kindler. The second volume of his column series was published on September 1, 2011 as a book and double CD under the title “My new life as a human being”
Kindler also published “Das Buch der 39 Kostbarkeiten” in March 2011. It contains travel notes, reports, radio plays, poetry and prose from the past 17 years. The texts also include interviews (for example with Loriot and Peter Alexander) as well as the manuscripts of the radio plays “Liebe Sabine” and “Das Kölner Wartezimmer-Massaker” and Jan Weiler’s first short story entitled “Die Experimente des Albert Kamp.”
Jan Weiler has been on extensive reading tours through Germany since 2005. He performs between 60 and 100 times a year with his current program. His tours are booked and managed by Marcel Vega at the Tomprodukt agency. Jan Weiler can also be seen on television from time to time. On August 11, 2009, he took over as guest presenter of the cultural magazine West.Art on WDR, replacing Katty Salie. In October 2010, he hosted his own program “Weilers Welt” on 3sat for four editions.
On January 18, 2011, Jan Weiler received the Ernst Hoferichter Prize of the City of Munich, which is awarded to writers who combine “originality with cosmopolitanism and humor”. Elke Heidenreich gave the laudatory speech at the award ceremony. Her text can be found as a foreword in the “Book of 39 Treasures.”
In March 2014, “Das Pubertier” was published as a book and CD and became Jan Weiler’s biggest success since his first book “Maria, ihm schmeckt’s nicht”. The book was on the Spiegel bestseller list for over 50 weeks, including six weeks at number 1 and 13 weeks at number 2. The stage program “Mein Leben mit dem Pubertier und andere Geschichten” also proved to be very successful. The tour initially covered 47 cities and continued in more than 90 cities between 2015 and 2017.
The novel “Kühn hat zu tun” was published as a book and CD on March 6, 2015. Since then, Jan Weiler has been represented by the literary and film agency Marcel Hartges. Booking for events will continue to be handled by the Tomprodukt agency.
The volume “Nicks Sammelsurium” and CD were published in 2016. This book contains stories about the columnist’s son Nick before he reached puberty. The theater version of “Maria, ihm schmeckt’s nicht”, adapted by Dirk Böhling for the Westfälisches Landestheater, also premiered in 2016. Since then, the play has been performed in over twenty cities. The musical version of the novel by Heiko Lippmann, Max Merker and Christian Doll has been performed many times since 2013.
2017 was once again dominated by puberty. The third volume of stories entitled “Und ewig schläft das Pubertier” was published by Piper Verlag in July. The accompanying live double CD followed in December. The movie “Das Pubertier”, directed by Leander Haußmann and starring Jan-Josef Liefers, was also released in July. The film reached almost one million moviegoers. ZDF began broadcasting the family series “Das Pubertier” in the fall. Pasquale Aleardi played the leading role of the father. The big reading tour also began in autumn 2017 with the program “Und ewig schläft das Pubertier”.
The original radio play “Eingeschlossene Gesellschaft” was released in January 2018 as a collaboration between Hörverlag and WDR. Eingeschlossene Gesellschaft” was also performed as a live radio play, first at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and then at the LitCologne. The novel “Kühn hat Ärger” was published by Piper Verlag on March 1, 2018. Live readings were also held for this book, so Jan Weiler was on the road with three different stage programs in spring 2018. In August 2018, he announced a longer break from live performances due to exhaustion, which began after the end of the third “Pubertier” tour in December 2018.
The film adaptation of “Kühn hat zu tun” with Thomas Loibl as Martin Kühn was broadcast on ARD in January 2019. It was produced by WDR and directed by Ralf Huettner from the production company Olga-Film, Munich.
The third novel about Martin Kühn, “Kühn hat Hunger”, was published by Piper in October 2019. A longer reading tour of thirty cities took place for this book.
A new stage program was planned for 2020 to accompany the publication of the column collection “Die Ältern”. This book and the CD produced in the studio this time were published on August 31, 2020. The stage program was originally intended to be shown in 56 cities, but by the end of 2020 only nine performances had taken place in accordance with the Infection Protection Act.
The tour continued from March 2022.
There will be two major releases in spring 2022. First, the new novel “Der Markisenmann” was published as a novel and audio book on March 21, and a reading tour to twenty cities begins at the end of March. A little later, on 14.4.22, the movie “Eingeschlossene Gesellschaft” opens in cinemas. Jan Weiler wrote the screenplay for this film based on his 2018 radio play of the same name. Filming took place in summer 2021 and was directed by Sönke Wortmann. The ensemble consisted of Anke Engelke, Torben Kessler, Florian David Fitz, Torsten Merten, Thomas Loibl, Justus von Dohnányi and Nilam Farooq.
Jan Weiler lives in Munich and Umbria.
