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What happens when a poet ends up writing crime novels… starring cats? 🐈‍⬛
In our latest interview, Fabian Navarro talks about his creative leap from the stage to the page, the art of balancing humor and suspense, his thoughts on AI in writing, and what SOFT means to him in a loud world.

Fabian Navarro, born 1990 in Warstein, Germany is a writer, slam poet and cultural events organizer. He lives in vienna. He has won several poetry slam championships, was awarded with the Arbeitsstipendium für Literatur from the city of Vienna 2022/23 and with the Fine Crime Newcomer Award 2025. So far he has published three cat crime novels and one touristic mystery book called Vienna Falling.

1.⁠ ⁠Fabian, you started out as a poetry slammer and now you’re writing cat crime novels that have clawed their way onto bestseller lists. How did your path lead from the stage to crime fiction and why cats? Was it a plan or just the next purr-fect step?

I guess it was more like stumbling over a very steep and narrow roof ridge. It's a long story: some years ago I was very active in my reading stage "Randale und Liebe" in Hamburg, where we had to write a text for each monthly edition. One time the task was to write a text containing the words our audience gave us. My words were: "Inhalator", "Knabenkörper", "Baldrian" and "Duschvorhang" and I had to write it in the genre of cat crime mystery. I wrote some pages, it went great. At this point I didn't take it seriously but I wanted to do a reading in Vienna for the first 30 pages. The date of the reading was the 20th of March in 2020 - the worst date for events in Vienna. So I moved to an online stream on Twitch, where the literary agent of a friend of mine (shout-out Jasmin Schreiber!) saw me. She asked if I wanted to finish this book and since round about 100 gigs for me were cancelled due to Covid, I was more than happy to have a larger project. We found a publisher in 2022, and since then I'm a cat crime novelist.

2.⁠ ⁠Miez Marple is everything the internet loves right now: crime, satire and cat logic all in one. What fascinates you about that mix – and how do you balance suspense and humor without turning the whole story into a parody?

Most animalistic crime fiction is very funny and goofy. I like that but for Miez Marple I try to have a silly premise like: "a cat crime novel in a parallel world where cats and other animals have a society" and to take it as serious as possible. Of course it's funny (I hope) and there are a lot of puns in it but on the other hand I really try to write a suspensful book. Sometimes people are surprised how dark some parts of the stories are. That's because I take the crime part seriously.

3.⁠ ⁠Artificial intelligence can now write texts that sound almost human – but often lack soul. As someone who lives and breathes language, how do you deal with AI?

I really hate it. Since 2017 I'm playing around with code and machines trying to create interesting ways to produce literature. But the rise of AI through big tech is the worst outcome I could have ever imagined. Technology is not always bad, but the application of AI—the sheer force it's been shoved down our throats by big companies - has become unbearable. My toothbrush does not need an AI companion! I recently applied to a master's degree program called "Digital Humanities" where we learn to work with deep learning, statistics and also learn to think critically about AI and technology in arts and society. This is my way to deal with the fact that this technology get incorporated in out everyday life without any second thoughts. But but for my more experimental artistic purposes I only use code I modified or wrote myself and has little to do with OpenAI or other big tech companies. For novels I don't use AI at all.

4.⁠ ⁠You’ve written several books in the Miez Marple series. How do you keep creativity alive when returning to the same universe again and again – and how do you stop your characters from going stale?

That's the hardest part. There are some recurring characters who appear in multiple books. I try to give them broader story arcs and let them pursue goals or test them by letting them experience bad things. Oh man, that sounds so bad, I treat my real cats very well, I swear!

5.⁠ ⁠This month’s theme is SOFT. What does softness mean to you – as a writer, as a person, maybe even as a quiet rebellion against a loud, hard world?

The rebellion part sounds a little corny but I think it's true. Most traits associated with softness require a lot of strength: being able to communicate your feelings, to ask for help or showing empathy - all of this is so hard these days. All my dearest friends are soft and lovely most of the time but sometimes they are badass, loud and have sharp words to say - I think it's important to have access to both of these sides of you.