Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Series
Title
Oral history interview with Abdi Nazemian
Date(s)
- 2019-11-08 (Creation)
Extent
732 megabytes 1 audio file (WAV, 1 hr., 6 min., 39 sec.)
Name of creator
Biographical history
Abdi Nazemian was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1976. His family left Iran a few years later, and they lived in Paris, France, then Toronto, Canada. They settled in New York City in 1986. In 1998, he earned a bachelor's degree in English at Columbia University, and then earned a master's of business administration from the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked as a screenwriter for television and film and published several young adult novels. His first novel, "The Walk-in Closet," won the Lambda award for debut novels in 2015.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
This oral history interview with Abdi Nazemian was conducted by Sankar Raman and Nancy E. Dollahite on November 8, 2019. The interview was recorded for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees in the United States.
In this interview, Nazemian discusses his family background and early life in Paris, France; Toronto, Canada; and New York City. He shares the reasons his family left Iran for France, then Canada; talks about his experience growing up multilingual and about raising his own children to also be multilingual; and about adjusting to life in the United States. He discusses his cultural and ethnic identity, and his identity as a gay man, and talks about how those identities inform his writing. He speaks about his experiences and education at a boarding school in New York, talks about coming out to his family in his twenties, and describes his early career as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, California. He speaks at length about writing books telling queer Iranian stories, and about his writing process. He closes the interview by talking about how the AIDS pandemic affected him, by describing the themes of his novels, and by discussing public reception of his novels.
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and The Immigrant Story. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Physical access
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
Languages of the material
- English
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
Acquisition and appraisal elements
Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
Gift of The Immigrant Story, June 2021 (RL2021-057).
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information
Accruals
Related materials elements
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related archival materials
Related descriptions
Publication notes
An article about Abdi Nazemian, "What Gives Us Power" by Nancy E. Dollahite, was based on this interview and published on The Immigrant Story website at https://theimmigrantstory.org/what-gives-us-power/.
Notes element
General note
Preferred citation: Oral history interview with Abdi Nazemian, by Sankar Raman and Nancy E. Dollahite, SR 12316, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Specialized notes
Alternative identifier(s)
Description control element
Rules or conventions
Finding aid based on DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard), 2nd Edition.
Sources used
Archivist's note
Sarah Stroman
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Raman, Sankar (Contributor)
- Dollahite, Nancy E. (Contributor)
- The Immigrant Story (Hillsboro, Or.) (Subject)