Nasser Yousefi

Nasser Yousefi was born in 1967 in Tehran. He spent his childhood in a quiet family full of love, joy, and care. He was the third of four children who spent their days experiencing new things with their parents. Since childhood, his interest in art and literature was evident. His father, working on a project to equip the municipality library, borrowed plenty of children's and teen books every week, allowing Nasser to read them. He then became a member of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA) Library, spending most of his time in libraries exploring worlds of myths, tales, and stories. In those days, reading stories allowed him to trust books and immerse himself in them—a skill that later saved him during his teenage years.

The year 1978 coincided with the Iranian Revolution. Nasser was eleven years old at the time. The events of the revolution and the political confrontations forced his generation to grow up quickly. It was as if they were thrown into an unfamiliar world overnight. The excitement of this period created obsessions unsuitable for an 11-year-old child.

From that year onward, everything around him changed. A child who once spent time with mermaids, princes, and knights now had to read and think about revolutions, liberation armies, anti-colonial movements, imperialism, guerrilla warfare, and similar topics. Romantic fairy tales and fantasy stories filled with joy and hope were replaced with narratives of war and conflict. The turbulent atmosphere of this era left no room for peaceful and imaginative fantasies. These conditions shaped Nasser's adolescence. Political movements were so active in schools that no student could remain uninvolved.

In 1981, just two years after the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war began, bringing yet another crisis to Nasser's teenage years. The combined effects of revolution and war left no room for a typical teenage experience.

In an interview, Yousefi recalled:

"Instead of experiencing friendly relationships, my teenage years were filled with worries about people's difficult situations in Africa, Algeria, Afghanistan, the Arab-Israeli war, and so on."

Like many people of his generation, he became deeply involved in political movements. At the age of 14, he was sentenced to prison and spent some time in a detention center for teen activists. After being released, he experienced terrifying days as a 14-year-old and found himself on the edge of depression. War, political pressures, young people fleeing the country to escape the war, a wave of asylum-seekers, the widespread presence of youth—even teenagers—on the battlefields, captivity in Iraq, and the imprisonment and execution of many young people made his teenage years even more difficult.

"It was literature that helped me survive those dreadful days. I took refuge in literature again and began reading as I had in my childhood. I read frantically. Between the ages of 14 and 16, I read most of the classic works by great writers such as Tolstoy, Chekhov, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Faulkner, Mark Twain, Dostoevsky, and many others. Months passed, and I hardly left the house—I just read novels."

Literature and novels reconnected him to life. Those classic works, filled with themes of humanism and peace, reinforced his belief in the value of life, even as the world around him seemed to tell a different story.

Nasser was still in his teens when he turned to peace literature and sought children's books promoting peace, such as The Child, the Soldier and the Sea and The Diary of Anne Frank. He discovered that many children's books advocated for the foundations of peace, emphasizing that children should live in harmony and understanding. After witnessing the horrors of war and political turmoil, Nasser became a peace advocate and an anti-war activist as a teenager. However, promoting peace in a war-torn country was not easy and could easily be perceived as anti-government political activity.

At 15, Nasser started writing poems and stories, many of which were widely published in children's and teen journals. At 16, IIDCYA selected him as a teenage poet from Tehran to attend the first national meeting of young poets. There, he once again recited poems about peace. As his passion for literature grew, he became determined to write for children.

During high school, in addition to attending classes in the morning, he enrolled in afternoon courses at the School of Art and Literature, a training center for extracurricular activities. There, he focused on storytelling and poetry. Although managing school and additional courses was demanding, his enthusiasm for writing and artistic expression helped him overcome the exhaustion of traditional schooling.

In an article, he wrote:

"I never liked school. Since primary school, classes have been boring. I had new ideas, but those classes never met my needs."

The monotonous high school lessons made attending classes even more difficult for him. The school environment became unbearable with the post-revolutionary tensions, the pressures of war, and political disputes. He spent hours writing poems, painting, and reading or creating stories in class.

During his teenage years, Nasser became familiar with the peace-related activities of organizations such as UNESCO and UNICEF. At 16, he wrote a letter to UNICEF Iran, expressing his willingness to volunteer. This led to an invitation from UNICEF, where he began selling UNICEF cards and gifts at schools and other locations, donating all proceeds to the organization. This experience exposed him to international movements and helped him break free from the restrictive atmosphere of his society.

As a teenager, he also joined the Children's Book Council, the Iranian representative of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), where he learned from experts in children's literature. For many years, he worked on various projects within the council.

After high school, Nasser entered the University of Tehran's School of Psychology, where he studied under professors who had been students of Jean Piaget. His passion for children deepened, giving him a more profound understanding of their development. By the time he reached his second year of university, the Iran-Iraq war had ended, marking the first time in his life that he saw a glimmer of hope for peace. For him, the war's end had always seemed like an unattainable dream—now, he was witnessing it come true.

He wanted to share this newfound peace with children. However, some factions within the government resisted the ceasefire and continued to promote war. Talking about peace in public was still considered a controversial and sensitive issue.

In 1986, while at university, Nasser joined Kayhan Bacheha's Children Magazine, where he worked on various children’s stories. Kayhan Bacheha was one of the few weekly magazines for children at the time and had a large readership. While many writers were preoccupied with war-related themes, Nasser focused on friendship, forgiveness, reconciliation, kindness, and affection in his works.

In 1988, at 21, he published his first story, The World’s Kindest Horse. The story follows a pony who helps other animals, shares his belongings, and promotes kindness. Amidst the violent atmosphere of war, the book sparked mixed reactions—some critics argued that it painted an unrealistic picture of society. However, children embraced the story, which has been reprinted nearly twenty times. That same year, the book was honoured at the IIDCYA Festival.

Get to Know Nasser Yousefi

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