Carolin Emcke

Caroline Emcke has worked for 16 years as a war correspondent and is hailed as one of the most important contemporary German intellectuals. In her writings, she focuses on the major issues of our times: racism, fanaticism, and the rejection of democracy in an increasingly polarized world. The book-length essay she wrote on these subjects, Against Hate, was awarded the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2016. She emerged on the German literary scene in 2012 with How We Desire, a very personal, analytical, but also profoundly political work on homosexual desire, a book equal parts testimony and ode to freedom. Emcke studied philosophy, political science and history in London, Harvard University and Frankfurt (under Jürgen Habermas). She worked as an international reporter for Die Zeit in various regions, including Israel, the West Bank, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Haiti and the USA. Between 1998 and 2006, she worked for Der Spiegel as a war correspondent in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kosovo and Iraq. She has been a freelance columnist for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and El País since 2014.