Yael Inokai is an award-winning Swiss author of three novels and a number of short stories.
Born in Basel in 1989, she studied philosophy in Basel and Vienna, then went on to study screenwriting in Berlin. Her debut novel, Storchenbiss, was published in 2012. She won the 2018 Swiss Literature Prize for her second novel, Mahlstrom, and the prestigious Anna Seghers Prize in 2022 for her third novel, Ein simpler Eingriff, which was also longlisted for the German Book Prize 2022.
Yael’s writing is spare, delicate, and calm. Elements of darkness are woven into her narratives to devastating effect. About Ein simpler Eingriff she has said, “All too often, women who dare to break free end up being portrayed as failures in literature and film. In dramatic terms, it’s as if they are being punished for it. I wanted to do things differently.”
Inokai is an editor at the magazine Politisch Schreiben and lives in Berlin. (2022)