Adrian Pourviseh

Adrian Pourviseh was born in Koblenz in 1995. He grew up with stories of flight and displacement in his family: his grandmother fled from East Prussia to Germany as a child. His father fled Iran as a politically persecuted person after the Islamic Revolution. Adrian Pourviseh studied Oriental Studies (B.A.) in Marburg and Rabat as well as Development Economics (M.Sc.) at Lund University in Sweden. He also attended summer schools in Tehran, Alexandria and Uppsala and worked on climate research projects in Namibia and Pakistan as well as for the US Agency for International Development. In 2015, he began working as an interpreter for young refugees alongside his studies. In 2019, he joined the Sea-Watch 3 as an interpreter and photographer and volunteered on the island of Les-bos. He recorded his experiences as illustrated diary entries, which later became the template and inspiration for “The Shimmer of the Sea”. Adrian came to comic writing when he saw the need to tell new perspectives.