Fatma Aydemir grew up in a suburb of Karlsruhe. Her grandparents came as guest workers to Germany when their parents were teenagers. She studied German and American Studies in Frankfurt am Main. Aydemir has lived in Berlin since 2012 and works as an editor for the daily newspaper taz, where she deals with pop culture, literature and Turkey. She initiated the bilingual web portal taz.gazete, in response to the state repression against press freedom in Turkey. As a freelance writer, she also writes for Spex and Missy Magazine.

Her 2017 debut novel Ellbogen, which deals with an escalation of violence in a subway station. Reviewer Philipp Bovermann appreciates Aydemir's clear language in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and feels the book as two kicks in the stomach: "One for the misogyne Turkish society. And one for the mendacity of oh so liberal Germans. " Andrea Diener of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, however, would have liked more differentiated observations of the German-Turkish protagonist Hazal:" The author does not attach much importance to us that Hazal im As the book progresses sympathetically, it slips away from the reader (...). "

For elbows Aydemir received in 2017 the endowed with 10,000 euros Klaus Michael Kühne Prize of the Harbor Front Literature Festival for the best debut novel of the year, also Aydemir was nominated with elbows for the Franz Hessel Prize 2017.