2021

Rachelle Deguara has been working in the book industry for the last three years building close relations with authors, promoting their work and contributing to the National Book Festival (Malta). Her work in the literacy field started when she had the role of public relations officer in the voluntary organisation Għaqda tal-Malti Universitá which is the university association that strives to promote emerging authors and make sure that the pioneers of Maltese literature are not forgotten.

Iris Meijer has been working as a bookseller at Linnaeus Boekhandel in Amsterdam since 2015. Apart from day-to-day sales in store, she is responsible for the selection and purchase of English titles and partially responsible for the selection and purchase of fiction and non-fiction titles. Apart from her work at Linnaeus, she co-organises the annual nationwide event De Week van het Korte Verhaal [The Week of the Short Story] and she also coordinates booksales at the Lowlands Festival.

Ana Geršak (1983) has been working as a literary critic and editor for a number of years. She is a contributor to various literary journals, newspapers, web portals and the national radio. She was on the organisational team for the international critics’ symposium coordinated by the Slovene Literary Critics’ Association. In 2011, she received the Stritar Award, which is presented annually by the Slovene Writers’ Association to the most promising literary critic.

Bora Babić is editrix-in-chief and directress of the publishing house Akademska knjiga. She is also the co-founder and vice-president of the UPIS-Association of Serbian Professional Publishers. She began her professional career working in the publishing department for both Matica srpska Novi Sad and Izdavačka knjižarnica Zorana Stojanovića.

Thorgeir Tryggvason is a critic, playwright, musician and theatre director. He has a degree in philosophy from the University from Iceland, and has been a theatre critic for Morgunblaðið, Iceland’s leading newspaper, since 2000. Thorgeir is a regular contributor to the literary magazine TMM and the cultural website Starafugl. Since 2013 he has been a literary critic for Kiljan, a TV programme dedicated to books and literature. 

Petr A. Bilek (born 1962) is a professor of modern Czech literature and literary theory at the Charles University in Prague, and the chair of the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. He is the author of six books on literature and culture and co-author/editor of five other books. He wrote on modern Czech poetry, literary theory, and – in the last decade – mainly on contemporary Czech prose fiction.

Born in Malta in 1947, Albert Marshall has distinguished himself as a theatre and television director, playwright, poet and TV presenter in a career spanning over 50 years. His literary works are widely published in Australia, Canada and Malta. He spent 15 years working in Australian radio, theatre and television and became the first Maltese national to direct at Sydney Opera House. Marshall recently published a collection of his poetry written between 1964 – 2019 and is currently working on the publication of literary works for theatre and television.

Martijn David (1962) worked in publishing for over twenty years. He has published translated and original Dutch literary fiction and non-fiction. Since 2012, he is the director of the Dutch Publishing Association for general books.

Renata Zamida has been working in the publishing sector since 15 years, mostly in international cooperation, copyright (buying and selling rights), marketing and eBooks. Between 2013 and 2016, she was the Artistic Director of the Fabula International Literary Festival, taking place in Slovenia, as well as board member of the Slovenian Book Fair in Ljubljana, responsible for internationalization, up until 2018.

Ana Pejović is a literary professional, editor and translator from Belgrade, Serbia. She has worked in several publishing houses in Serbia, with focus on literature from post Yugoslav countries. She also worked in the non-governmental sector, aiming at promoting contemporary literature. Currently, she has been developing a platform for the promotion of contemporary literature towards children and young adults, together with writer Jasminka Petrović. Her translations include writers such as David Lodge, Hannah Arendt, Adam Haslett, Richard Owain Roberts.