Nikola Lero

Nikola Lero is a poet, activist, and researcher whose work bridges the intersections of migration, memory, and creative expression. A quadruple fellow‚ 2022 Landecker Democracy Fellow, 2022 Untold Stories Grantee, 2019 Pat Cox Fellow, and 2017 Sarajevo Fellow‚ Nikola has spent years shaping narratives that challenge borders, both physical and imagined.

From 2022 to 2024, he served as UNESCO’s Youth Champion for Peace in Bosnia, working on the global initiative Social Media 4 Peace, strengthening societies against harmful online narratives. A writer at heart, his poetry and storytelling are tools of resistance, empathy, and remembrance. His debut collection, 47 Poems about Love, Pain, and Bosnia, was published in collaboration with Knjiæevna Zadruga, a transnational literary collective of young and queer voices from the former Yugoslavia.

A U.S. State Department Fulbright Scholar at St. Louis University (2022-2023), Nikola conducted research on hybrid identities among second-generation Bosnian Americans, exploring the ways displacement shapes belonging. Currently, he is a researcher at the University of Sheffield, examining cross-border placemaking within the Yugoslav diaspora and how memory, migration, and identity interact across post-conflict geographies.

A true believer in the power of the arts to transcend exile and displacement, Nikola co-founded Blank Pages, a cosmopolitan creative collective amplifying migrant voices through poetry, music, and visual art. His work has reached global audiences across digital and physical spaces, always guided by his motto: “By engraving letters, I search for the truth.”

Places that Whisper

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Updated February 2025