Mehrdad Zaeri

Mehrdad Zaeri was born in Isfahan, Iran, in 1970. At the age of fourteen, he fled with his family via Turkey to Germany. After studying at an art academy, he worked from 2006 as a book illustrator, live performance artist, and storyteller in the German-speaking world. In 2016, he founded Duo Sourati with Christina Laube; the duo created large-scale drawings on building façades. In 2023, Zaeri received the Grand Prize of the German Academy for Children’s and Young Adult Literature in recognition of his diverse body of work for young readers.