The Lazar Family: Finding a Voice Across Three Generations of Barons Without Heroes

30 September 2026

When we take a look at the publishing landscape, we often see them labeled as “young authors” writers who are now decidedly adults.

The talent of Nelio Biedermann is, however, truly precocious: the author, born in 2003 and raised near Zurich, has shown a remarkable literary inclination from a very young age.

I Lázár, written by a teenager, was among the finalists for the Schweizer Buchpreis in 2025 and won the Independent Booksellers Prize. And now it is set to be released in many countries (in Italy it has just been published by Guanda, in the translation by Leonella Basiglini). All of this has happened in a very short time.

And it reaches its sixth edition Leggere il mondo, the digital guide dedicated to high school. Designed as a support tool for teachers, parents, booksellers, librarians and educators, it offers over 40 selected titles and organized into reading pathways. The theme of this new issue is research: of beauty, of rights, of new opportunities and of the relationship with others. This issue (to which the above article belongs) is also enriched by a new section of downloadable and customizable classroom worksheets for teachers.

Amelia Hartwell

I write about books the way I read them: slowly, curiously, and with attention to the details that linger after the final page. At Lythrum Press, I cover literary fiction, essays, memoirs and the wider culture of reading, with a particular interest in voices that challenge familiar ways of seeing the world. My work is guided by one simple idea: a good book deserves more than a reaction — it deserves a conversation.