Akif Pirinçci

Akif Pirinçci — Biography

Akif Pirinçci is a Turkish-born German writer, born on 20 October 1959 in Istanbul. He achieved international fame with Felidae (1989), the first in a series of crime novels written in German and narrated by cats, and followed it with other notable works such as Deutschland von Sinnen and Die große Verschwulung.

From 2012 onward he became a regular speaker at right-wing populist and anti-Islam gatherings, a shift that drew sharp public controversy. Following a xenophobic speech he delivered for the Pegida movement in 2015, his publisher, Amazon and most German booksellers cancelled his contracts and pulled his books from sale.

Pirinçci was subsequently convicted six times over statements found to be criminally punishable, including incitement to hatred; in 2021 a regional court in Dresden sentenced him to four months in prison plus three years of probation over the 2015 speech.