Cigdem Akyol

Cigdem Akyol (born October 1978 in Herne) is German journalist and author of Turkish-Kurdish ancestry.

Cigdem Akyol
Çiğdem Akyol, 2018
Born	1978 Herne
Occupation	Journalist
Nationality	German
Alma mater	University of Cologne
Notable works	Ich wollte nie in die Türkei

Life

Akyols parents moved from Turkey to Germany in 1973 and settled in the Ruhr region in Herne. Akyol grew up in Herne, where she attended the Haranni-Gymnasium (high school). After her graduation in 1998 she studied international law and Eastern European history at the University of Cologne. Then she moved to Berlin to attend a journalism school and began working as a journalist. From 2006 to 2014 she worked for Berlin-based national German newspaper Die Tageszeitung, for which she often reported from abroad. In 2014 she accepted a temporary position the Deutsche Presse-Agentur offered in Istanbul. After the completion of her term she remained in Istanbul working as a freelance journalist and book author.

In 2015 she published a book about Turkey in the 21st century, describing it as a conflicted split society and in 2016 she followed it up with an extensive biography of the Turkish politician and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Since 2019 Akyol has been a staff writer at the Swiss weekly WOZ.

Books

• Generation Erdogan. Die Türkei – ein zerrissenes Land im 21. Jahrhundert. Kremayr & Scheriau, 2015, ISBN 978-3-218-00969-0
• Erdogan: Die Biografie. Herder, 2016, ISBN 978-3451328862

External links

• Official website
• Autorin im Porträt: Cigdem Akyol - biographical portrait at kremayr-scheriau.at (German)
• "Ich wollte nie in die Türkei" - biography at lokalkompass.de (German, archived version)
• Cigdem Akyol at Perlentaucher (German)
• Cigdem Akyol - Die Erdogan-Biografin - interview broadcast by ARD (German)