Tanja Kinkel
Literature
Dr. Tanja Kinkel, born in 1969 in Bamberg, is one of Germany’s most prominent and bestselling authors of historical fiction. She received her first literary prize at the age of 18 and went on to study German literature, theater, and communication studies in Munich, earning her doctorate with a dissertation on Lion Feuchtwanger’s engagement with the theme of power.
In 1992, Kinkel founded the children’s aid organization “Brot und Bücher e.V.” (“Bread and Books”), through which she remains committed to improving educational opportunities and living conditions for children worldwide. Scholarships in Rome and Los Angeles led to her appointment as founding curator of the International Artists’ House Villa Concordia in Bamberg. She was a founding member of the International Feuchtwanger Society in 2001, named an ambassador for the city of Bamberg in 2002, and became patron of Schloss Zerben, the setting of Fontane’s “Effi Briest,” in 2006. That same year, she was selected as one of “100 Minds of Tomorrow” as part of the German government’s “Germany – Land of Ideas” initiative. Kinkel has been a member of PEN Germany since 2007 and joined its executive board in 2011. She is also patron of the Federal Association of Children’s Hospices and has served since 2009 on the advisory board of the Friends of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.
Kinkel’s novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages and span subjects from the founding of Rome to 21st-century America. Her bestsellers include:
Wahnsinn, der das Herz zerfrißt
Die Löwin von Aquitanien
Die Puppenspieler
Mondlaub
Die Schatten von La Rochelle
Die Prinzen und der Drache
Unter dem Zwillingsstern
Die Söhne der Wölfin
Götterdämmerung
Der König der Narren
Venuswurf
Säulen der Ewigkeit
Im Schatten der Königin
Noahs Arche
Das Spiel der Nachtigall
Tanja Kinkel lives and works in Munich.