At just 22, Nelio Biedermann is experiencing the kind of global reach that few novelists taste in a lifetime. He wrote his second novel (I didn’t find out until after the interview that he’d published his first aged 16!) while studying in Zurich, where he is still at university, and it has been translated into 28 languages so far. Most of his professors had no idea he was even writing a book, until he won the Book of the Year at 2024’s Frankfurt Book Fair - the largest publishing fair in the world. (Kind of like fashion week - long days, many drinks, much schmoozing - but for books.)
When I was first approached to interview Nelio, I’ll admit my interest was piqued by his age (then 21) - and then I read the first 10 pages of Lázár and was thrilled and astonished by the writing. So much was packed into just one page! And yet with the lightest of touch. Never in a million years would I guess it had been written by a teenager. He is already being compared to Thomas Mann, who I am yet to read, but have been told is like Germany’s Franzen.
Inspired by his own family history (his aristocratic grandparents fled Hungary for Switzerland in the late 1950s), Nelio has written a tender, poetic, bawdy, visceral novel - with notes of magical realism - which tells the story of modern Hungary through three generations of Lázár men (Sandor, Lajos, Pista) and a half dozen brutal regimes (the fall of the Habsburg empire, authoritarianism, Nazism, Stalinism and Communism).
Lázár is an extraordinary, masterful novel, with a gorgeous cover, and interviewing Nelio - who is so vivacious, curious, and modest - is a highlight of my year so far. This is the first time I have worked with a videographer (thank you, Peter!) and he’s done a brilliant job. I interview authors pretty regularly but I’ve never shared one in full here. I’m thinking of sharing more videos, going forward - so if you would like to see more of them, let me know! Apologies also for the flares of aggressive traffic (god bless Central London) and for some of the typos in the subtitles. I lack the technical know how to correct them.
