Jakob Arjouni was born in Frankfurt on the Main in 1964. After his graduation he worked in the South of France for some years and now lives in Berlin. At the age of 19 he wrote his first Kayankaya novel, Happy Birthday,Turk! and he was awarded the ›German crime novel prize‹ in 1992 for One Man, One Murder. His work Idiots. Five Fairy Tales was on various best-seller lists for several months. Jakob Arjouni lives with his wife and his children in the South of France and in Berlin. Jakob Arjouni’s books have been published in 23 languages.
»Magnificent«The Guardian
»Arjouni deserves to be better known in the English speaking world.«The Times
»Jakob Arjouni writes the best urban thrillers since Raymond Chandler.«Tempo
»A master of the sketch and the caricature.«Die Welt
»Impossible to put his books down.«El Pais
»A worthy grandson of Marlowe and Spade.«Stern
"Arjouni is a master of authentic background descriptions and an original story teller."Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
»There is hardly another German-speaking writer who is as sure of his milieu as Arjouni is. He draws incredibly vivid pictures of people and their fates in just a few words. He is a master of the sketch – and the caricature – who operates with the most economic of means.«Die Welt
»Jakob Arjouni is good at virtually everything: gripping stories, situational comedy, loving character sketches and apparently coincidental polemic commentary.«Süddeutsche Zeitung
»Arjouni tells real-life stories, and they virtually never have a happy ending. He tells them so well, with such flexible dialogue and cleverly maintained tension, that it is impossible to put his books down.«El País
»A genuine storyteller who beguiles his readers without the need of tricks.«L'Unità