As I sat in the reception of The Sebel Pier One Hotel, I waited patiently for Ian Klaus to arrive for his interview. I watched the second hand of my clock tick its way to being 11am, and he was still nowhere to be seen.

Just as it hit 11am, there he was, stepping out of the lift, in shorts, sneakers and messy hair. That must be him.

As he grabs an apple from the reception desk, he says “Hey I’m Ian, how’s it going?”

I am standing next to a man who is not only finishing off a PhD at Harvard, but was a Rhodes Scholar, an honoured university achievement placed on all rounders at an international level, and has taught American history and English in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region torn apart by conflict. And he’s only 28. No wonder the Sydney Writer’s Festival has chosen to showcase his book, which has been written on his experiences in teaching.

The Sydney Writer’s Festival is one of many festivals that have celebrated his first memoir, Elvis is Titanic, but Ian just can’t believe that his book has taken him all the way to Sydney. “The welcome has been remarkable,” he says. “Just the other day I was walking the street and I met this guy Ben who was dressed up in all this Queensland gear, so I asked him if he was going to the rugby, and he said yeah I’ve got a spare ticket!”

So Ian Klaus went to the State of Origin, courtesy of Ben Evans, a coal miner from Queensland. That’s one of many experiences that Ian has been lucky enough to have, but in the last two weeks he’s also travelled across most of Australia, and will continue to do so – a luxury most Australians don’t have. Even so, he admits that sometimes he forgets that his book is the reason why he is here.

Iraqi Kurdistan is a region in the Republic of Iraq which torn by conflict of war and identity – despite being considered an autonomous region, Iraqi Kurdistan is still not recognised as a separate state.  Klaus describes the ethic make up of the people in the region as “Iraqi Kurds.”  After spending almost a year teaching English and history there, he has learned much about a culture that is often portrayed so differently to his home in American suburbia. He has also learned a lot about himself, which drew him to writing his memoir.

“No one told me [when writing a book] that you are going to feel that you’re putting your whole soul out there, and then people are going to have a peek at it and come to conclusions,” says Klaus.

Klaus has certainly experienced just that. People have peeked at the book and have come to their own mixed conclusions. His relationship with Chelsea Clinton, which is touched on in the book, has been the reason for some not so pleasant publicity. As soon as his ex girlfriend is mentioned, Klaus laughs. It’s obvious that the focus of many of his interviews has focused on their relationship.

“I wrote a book, and I hope that the book stands alone,” he says, “I do get a little worked up sometimes when people think the publicity is done intentionally, but I think that when people buy a book, they buy it to read, not just because of something [from] long ago.” He just hopes that’s not why people would want to buy the book anyway.

But a topic that he brings up himself is the dedication of the book, which read “To my mother and Chelsea, for understanding.” Having been with each other for over three years, before he ventured to the Middle East, Klaus says that “it’s only fair that that existed.”

Naturally, his book is a memoir that contains not only a lot about the America’s international relations, but the relationships formed by his context. He says that with all this unwanted publicity “about the celebrity connection business… the story often gets lost.”

Meeting Klaus, it’s not immediately obvious how much of an impact he has made on different people all over the world with his work. He describes the situation he was in as unique, and that meeting different people has shaped the person he has become.

“You can’t under value meeting people, as humans it denies the ability to generalize. In that sense travelling and writing will always make sense to me,” he says.

This is evident in Elvis is Titanic.

Not only that, he’s flown back and forth just to keep that same sense of normalcy that he felt being overseas. Having just come out of an emotional period of his life when he originally went there, he has come to the realization that he has grown attached to his life in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has pushed him to go back to continue his life with the youths he has grown fond of.

You can tell he still feels an attachment just by listening to him talk about excerpts from the book. He recollects on a time teaching his students about American pop culture. They had no ideas who The Beatles were, or what Rocky was - they only knew who Elvis was, and just how big the movie Titanic was.

“That was just incredible to me,” he says, laughing.

“I initially thought it was a joke!”

It’s hard for the average person to think about living alone in a hotel in Iraqi Kurdistan, but he just doesn’t understand when people call him brave.

“From the perspective of my country right now, there are young men and young women that are there 15 months on end. They signed up, but they didn’t sign up to do three or four tours, so to put my travel in context,” Klaus says

“It’s so different and it involves some risks, and leaving people at home for an exceptionally long time… you learn a lot about yourself, but some of the things you see and experience can only make you stronger.

But from dating someone with such high celebrity status, to finding fulfillment overseas, to becoming a successful novelist all before the age of 30, Ian Klaus doesn’t have much reason to complain.

“Only the fact that a schooner here isn’t as big as a pint, I have to go back to the bar more often! But I can’t complain, Australia and where I am, it’s a wonderful place to be.”