Nikolai Grozni was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. He began training as a classical pianist at the age of four and won his first major award in Salerno, Italy, at the age of nine. He studied jazz at Berklee College of Music, Boston. He began writing while living in India, where he spent four years as a Buddhist monk, studying Tibetan texts at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala. His first book in English, TURTLE FEET, about his experience in India, was published in 2008 by Riverhead. WUNDERKIND, published in 2011 by Free Press, is a roman a clef about music, obsession, genius, and growing up behind the Iron curtain as a piano prodigy. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Brown University.

Books by Nikolai Grozni

Wunderkind

by Nikolai Grozni

Brash, brilliant 15-year-old Konstantin is a world-class pianist of exceptional sensitivity whose propulsive rage at Soviet oppression threatens to undo him.