Abdi Nazemian, USA

Abdi Nazemian was born in 1976 in Teheran and grew up, among other places, in Paris, Toronto and New York. He studied English at Columbia University in New York City as well as business administration at UCLA. Today he lives in Los Angeles. Even as a child, storytelling played a central role in his life: “I found myself through books, comic books, films and television.” Today he works as a producer for films and TV series and also writes screenplays and novels for teenagers and adults.

His debut novel “The Walk-in Closet” Abdi Nazemian was awarded the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for debut fiction. “Like a Love Story” was listed by Time Magazine in 2021 as one of the 100 best young adult novels of all times. In 2024 he once again won the Lambda Literary Award as well as the Stonewall Award for “Only This Beautiful Moment”. All of his books revolve around the themes of family, queerness and cultural identity, portraying the many tensions of growing up in the USA in a family with an Iranian background. Nonetheless Abdi Nazemian is committed to “telling stories that reflect the entire spectrum of human experience.”

The events with Abdi Nazemian will be moderated by Claudia Söffner, the specialist for English language literature at the International Youth Library.

To „Desert Echoes“and “Only This Beautiful Moment” from Abdi Nazemian