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Cigdem Toprak is a journalist and author born 1987 in Germany with Anatolian roots. She writes about identity, culture, migration, rap, feminism, social conflicts and minority policies. She has studied Political Science at TU Darmstadt as well as Conflict Resolution Studies at Sabanci University in Istanbul, completed her MA Program in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King´s College London with a thesis on Violence against Women in Turkey. Her career has brought her to Istanbul from beginning of 2013 to the end of 2014, in working as a communication manager and journalist as well as author for German media.

Cigdem Toprak conducted interviews with former German president Joachim Gauck, Marina Abramović, Francis Fukayama, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Zülfü Livaneli, Regina Halmich, Günter Wallraff, Ece Temelkuran, Thilo Sarrazin, Ezhel, Samra and Amber Pinkerton.

In 2023 she was member of the external board of trustees of the exhibition “Solingen ´93“ of  the Center for Persecuted Arts with Cem Özdemir as chairman. Furthermore, she was a mentor for TLNT & TLNT e.V. – Creative Mentoring Programs in 2023.

She worked as an author and speaker for SONY Music, Jung von Matt, degewo, Hertie School and American Jewish Committee Berlin and Paris and was participant of discussions of political talks with inter alia former German Health Minister Jens Spahn and Major of Berlin-Neukölln Martin Hikel.  

She published her first book „Das ist auch unser Land!“ in October 2020 and her short story „Mazlum“ was published in „Krachkultur“ in 2021. Her contributions have been published in Die WELT, Die WELT am SONNTAG, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, FAZ Magazin, FAZ Woche, ZEIT Online, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Business Insider, Die Presse, Tagesspiegel, Based Istanbul, Jüdische Allgemeine and more. She is now a doctoral candidate at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität on Identity in Political Theory.