„Ungleichheit ist nicht gottgegeben“
Sociologist Fabian Pfeffer on wealth inequality in Germany, the narratives the wealthy tell, and the question of who really owns what.
Read article →Journalist · Reporter · Non-fiction author
Stories that
move people
For more than three decades, I have written for Die Zeit, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, GEO, taz, and other leading publications. My work spans reportage, profiles, and non-fiction books, exploring the experiences, questions, and emotions that shape people's lives.
Foto: Julia Sellmann
01
What I do
Raised by two writers surrounded by books, my path led through sociology, history and literature in Munich, Freiburg and Berlin, plus Italian in Perugia, first to taz, Bayerischer Rundfunk and a local paper — and in 1996/97 to the Henri Nannen School of journalism.
From 1997 to 2000 I was a culture editor, reporter and columnist at Spiegel Online. Since then I have worked as a freelance author: for newspapers and magazines, as a ghostwriter for books and public figures, and on my own non-fiction — most recently the bestseller on Narrative Exposure Therapy with the psychotraumatologist Dr. Maggie Schauer.
I have also worked for „Der Spiegel“, the dpa news agency in New York, Friedrich Küppersbusch's „Privatfernsehen“, the „Frankfurter Rundschau“ and Bayerischer Rundfunk (radio), as well as a dramaturge and writer for stage works by the director Christine Umpfenbach and the composer Marc Sinan.
Since 2024 I have also practised as a licensed psychotherapist in my own practice in Berlin — based on the highly successful, evidence-based Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) — working with individuals, media, democratic institutions and activists who suffer the effects of traumatic stress and want their story understood, witnessed and calmed.
I love travel, good theatre and languages. I co-founded Freischreiber, Pro Quote Medien and Demokratie in Bewegung and served on the jury of the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize. Since 1990 I have been at home mostly in Berlin and increasingly on the border between Italy and France — with an ever larger and lovelier patchwork family.
Press card
- Born25 December 1967, Munich
- Journalist since1992
- TrainingHenri Nannen School, 1996/97
- 1997–2000Spiegel Online, culture desk
- since 2000Freelance author & reporter
- LanguagesDE, IT, ES, FR, EN
- Co-founderFreischreiber, Pro Quote Medien, Demokratie in Bewegung
- Based inBerlin / IT–FR border
- Full CVWikipedia →
- Press profilebeschreiber.de →
02
Stories, Texts, Reportage
(a big little selection)
Das übersehene Lustzentrum der Frau
An interview with gynaecologist Mandy Mangler on female anatomy, the "orgasm gap", and why the clitoris is still barely mentioned in medical textbooks.
Open PDF →Warum fühlen wir uns jünger, als wir sind?
„Fifty is the new forty“ sounds like wishful thinking. Yet research shows: those who feel younger than they are actually live longer and more content.
Open PDF →Ich bin's, der Ghost
Whether Prince Harry or Annalena Baerbock: prominent book projects are often written by another hand. A look behind the scenes of a discreet profession — from the author's own perspective.
Open PDF →Himmel und Hölle
Buying a holiday home in a dying Italian village leads straight into the trench warfare over Covid and migration — a very personal report about a village in upheaval.
Read article (€) →844 Mio.
844 million people worldwide have no clean water. In Uganda, a group of fisherwomen around Lydia Kateregga bring fresh water — and new hope — to their village.
Open PDF →„Zwei meiner Onkel sind tot“
Nowhere else in Europe did the virus rage as fiercely at the start of the pandemic as in Italy. Voices from a wounded country, recorded with Ulrich Ladurner.
Open PDF →Big in Batumi
Seven kilometres of promenade before a science-fiction skyline: Batumi, Georgia's gaudy resort on the Black Sea — between Soviet legacy, bling and the longing for the sweet life.
Open PDF →Total beseelt
In Benin, Voodoo is an officially recognised state religion. A journey to consult the Fa — the oracle that watches over the fate of the faithful.
Open PDF →Königinnen der Wüste
Alone through Oman in a rooftop-tent jeep: a ten-day drive across the Rub' al Khali sand desert and the mountains to Muscat — archaic, solitary, packed with courage and curiosity instead of luggage.
Open PDF →Kinderschützer im Schockraum
Shaking, throwing, hitting — parents can be deadly for their children. At Berlin's Charité, a team of doctors, psychiatrists and social workers tries to prevent the worst.
Open PDF →Wir waren mal schlauer
For decades IQ scores rose across industrial nations — now they are falling. A search for clues between genes, iodine deficiency, endocrine disruptors and the digitalisation of childhood. With Nike Heinen and Tanja Stelzer.
Open PDF →„Jeder Mensch hat das Recht, eine Niere zu verkaufen“
The philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards argues for a regulated trade in body parts — to save human lives. A conversation that provokes.
Open PDF →Spagat mit Kind
How do the dancers of the Sasha Waltz company reconcile a global career with family? On tour the children simply come along — a life between buggy and stage.
Open PDF →Auf Schnitzeljagd
A train to Vienna, plenty of wit and a twelve-year-old meat fanatic: a journey the whole family can savour.
Open PDF →Wie ein eingesperrtes Tier
That's how Marietta felt in the psychiatric ward. She cut herself, raged, wanted to die — until someone recognised the strong young woman inside her. A portrait of Asperger's, dissociation, and a long road back into life.
Open PDF →Ein Glück!
Ten minutes from the nearest doctor's surgery: heart surgeon Ingo Kaczmarek traded the career ladder for a village practice in the Swiss mountain hamlet of Vals — and a whole new view of his life.
Open PDF →Delirium — Der Albtraum nach der OP
Many patients wake from anaesthesia confused, agitated, delusional. A very personal investigation into a father and son — and a medical mystery science is only beginning to unravel.
Open PDF →„Papa, ich vermisse Mama mehr als dich“
Portrait of the Iranian human-rights activist Narges Mohammadi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023: she is held in Tehran's Evin prison while her twins Ali and Kiana grow up with their father in Parisian exile.
Open PDF →Chronik eines Skandals
At a daycare centre in Mainz, children were said to have abused other children. The carers were dismissed on the spot, and the public rushed to judgement. But what really happened? A meticulous reconstruction.
Open PDF →Da liegen heute noch Knochen im Sand
Trauma travels through generations and through cells, says the composer Marc Sinan. His stage work tells of the genocide of the Armenians — and of his own family.
Open PDF →Herzenssache
After a serious accident, parents must decide in seconds about donating their daughter's organs. The starting point for the book of the same name.
Open PDF →Wofür brauchen wir eigentlich Wachstum?
In search of an answer, the author climbs over singing plush penguins into the depths of the economic centres and follows the experts' flights of fancy. In a surprising place she finds what she is looking for.
Open PDF →
03
Books
Die einfachste Psychotherapie der Welt
Blockaden lösen
Heilen mit den Händen
Das sind die Hormone
Herzenssache
Ich will raus hier
Besser leben mit dem Tod
Wertarbeit
Das is(s)t Deutschland
Muttertage
Further books as a ghostwriter, including for Michael Kuhr and Oliver Lück, as well as „Die tun nichts, die wollen nur spielen!“ (with Christine Hohwieler, Herder 2006).
04
Awards & Nominations
- Shortlist, Publizistik-Preis der Stiftung Gesundheit — 2021
- Preselection, Nannen-Preis — 2020
- Nominated, Reporterpreis — 2018
- Journalistenpreis der Deutschen Chirurgen — 2017
- Deutscher Sozialpreis — 2015
- Katholischer Medienpreis — 2015
- Hansel-Mieth-Preis — 2015
- Dr.-Georg-Schreiber-Preis — 2015
- Journalisten-Preis des Bundesverbands Herzkranker Kinder — 2015
- Nominated, Reporterpreis — 2014
- Nominated, Reporterpreis — 2012
- Nominated, n-ost-Preis — 2011
- Nominated, Axel-Springer-Preis — 1997