Writer and journalist, scholar of Islam and admirer of Christianity, was born in 1967 in Siegen (Germany) as the son of Iranian immigrants. In addition to his literary activity, Kermani regularly writes in leading German-language newspapers and magazines, including Der Spiegel. He is a member of the German Academy of Language and Poetry and the Hamburg Academy of Sciences. For his literary and academic work he has received numerous awards, among them the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal and the Hannah Arendt, Kleist or Joseph Breitbach awards. In 2015 he received the Peace Prize of the German Booksellers, whose jury referred to him as one of the most important voices of today's society and valued not only his novels and essays but especially his reports on war zones.