2021

Pavel Mandys (born 1972) is a journalist, book critic, and organizer of the annual Magnesia Litera book award. He has written numerous book reviews as an editor of the online literary magazine iLiteratura.cz. In 2012, he published the book Prague: The City of Literature to support the city’s successful bid to become a UNESCO Creative City of Literature. He was the editor of the short stories collection Prague Noir (2018) and in 2020 he wrote a book of the crime genre in Czech literature (Dějiny české detektivky, with Michal Jareš).

Dr. Tina Bilban (1983) is a literary critic, author, editor and a research associate at the Institute Nova revija. She is president of the Slovenian section of IBBY – International Board on Books for Young People and a member of the executive committee of the Slovene Literary Critics' Association. She works at the crossroads between contemporary philosophy, science and literature. Tina is author of five books, the sixth will be published this year.

Nenad Šaponja (1964) is born and lives in Novi Sad, Serbia. He is a poet, essayist, and literary critic whose verses are recognizable in contemporary Serbian poetry due to their stylistic perfection, hermetic quality and metaphysical insight. His poetry has been translated into English, French, Italian, Romanian, Macedonian, Slovak, Albanian, Azerbaijan, Chinese etc. The most popular of his books are Does the Touch of Your Soul Exist?; Sweet Death; and I Seem, Therefore I Am Not.

Mkrtich Matevosyan is a painter and graphic designer. He was born in 1961 in Gyumri city, Armenia. In 1995, he founded the Actual Art cultural union NGO which is mainly engaged in publishing activity. Actual Art publishes books on contemporary literature, art, philosophy, as well as children's books. Mkrtich Matevosyan is also the co-founder-editor of Actual Art magazine. He has 3 children.

Since starting her career in the book business in 2012, Kristīne Pīkenena has been actively promoting Latvian and international literature. Currently she works as manager of the Jānis Roze Bookstore in Riga, at Kr.Barona street. She has taken part in three ICYB (International Congress of Young Booksellers), that used to gather young at heart booksellers from all around the globe. For more than six years she has been bringing together likeminded readers in the book club “Total Cover” (Totāls vāks), with monthly literary meetings on diverse subjects. 

Petrit Ymeri is the executive director of the Dituria publishing house, founded in May 1991. For several years, he was a literature teacher in high school and later a lecturer in foreign literature at the University of Tirana. Until 1991, he was a cultural journalist for the Albanian Radiotelevision and later the head of the editorial sector of the 8 November publishing house. From 2003 to 2014, Petrit Ymeri was a member of the Board of Directors of the Albanian Radiotelevision.

Ludvig Berggren is a German-Swedish translator and freelance writer. He translates mainly from Geman poets such as Lutz Seiler and Peter Huchel, among others. He also works as a literary advisor at the Goethe-Institut Schweden in Stockholm. He is a member of the Swedish Writer’s Union and resides in Stockholm.
 

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.

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.