Dirk Reinhardt

Dirk Reinhardt was born in Bergneustadt in 1963. He studied German Studies and literature at the University of Münster and obtained a PhD in history. He worked as a research assistant at the University of Münster until 1994, after which he worked as a freelance journalist. His young adult novels combine socio-political themes with ethical questions and issues of identity formation. In 2009, Reinhardt published his first children’s novel, Anastasia Cruz – Die Höhlen von Aztlán, followed in 2010 by the second instalment, Anastasia Cruz – Die Bücher des Thot. In his young adult novel Edelweißpiraten (2012), 16-year-old Daniel comes across the memoirs of a survivor of the Nazi regime and reads them half-heartedly, but then, with growing excitement, the story of the Edelweiss Pirates, a group of young working-class children who gradually join the political resistance. In Perfect Storm, Reinhardt tells the story of a group of young hackers who expose human rights violations by two large corporations and, as a result, become targets of these corporations and the secret service. His latest novel, No Alternative (2024), is about the young environmental activist Emma Larsen, who joins an underground organisation to fight for her beliefs.

Reinhardt has received numerous awards, including the 2011 Golden Bücherpirat, the 2016 Friedrich Gerstäcker Prize, the 2022 Friedrich Glauser Prize and the 2025 German Youth Literature Prize.

Anastasia Cruz – Die Höhlen von Aztlán
Berlin, 2009

Anastasia Cruz – Die Bücher des Thot
Berlin, 2010

Perfect Storm
Hildesheim, 2023

Train Kids
Hildesheim, 2024

No Alternative
Hildesheim, 2024