Jakob Arjouni was only 20 when his first bestselling crime novel was published in Germany and was such a literary prodigy that he had managed to create a substantial and durable body of work by the time of his death at the age of 48. This output includes the five pioneering novels featuring Kemal Kayankaya, a Turkish-German private eye, that began with Happy Birthday, Turk! in 1985. An immediate success, it was filmed by the director Dorris Dörrie in 1992. The final Kayankaya novel, Brother Kemal, which Arjouni wrote against the terrible knowledge of a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, will be published in the UK later this year, alongside reissues of the earlier books in the series, by No Exit Press, the Hertfordshire-based publisher which championed his work in English translation. He is survived by his wife, Miranda, their children, Emil and Lucy, and a daughter, Elsa, from a previous marriage.
Author photo © Miranda Junowicz
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