Helga Ferdinandsdóttir

Helga Ferdinandsdóttir, born 1969, studied literature at the University of Iceland and the University of Liverpool and holds a Master in Editing and Publishing. She has extensive literary and leadership experience, including editorial and copy-writer work in various media and on numerous committees. She was Literary Adviser at the Icelandic Literature Center and has served as head of jury on several literary prizes, including the Icelandic Literary Prize and The Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize (the Icelandic committee). 

Oleksandra Koval

Oleksandra Koval is director of the Ukrainian Book Institute. She was the president of the Publishers’ Forum NGO from 1995 to 2018. She is also co-founder of the Ukrainian Association of Book Publishers and Booksellers and of the Ukrainian Association of Reading.

Ivana Myšková

Ivana Myšková (born 1981) is a writer and culture journalist. She worked as a radio cultural editor of the culture radio channel Český rozhlas 3 Vltava. In 2007, she debuted with her radio play Odpoledne s liliputem (Afternoon with a Lilliputian) and in 2012, she published a novella Nícení (Incitement). In 2017, she published a collection of short stories entitled Bílá zvířata jsou velmi často hluchá (White Animals Are Very Often Deaf). Since 2018 she is member of the committee of the Czech Writers Association (member organization of the European Writers’ Council).

Antonio Avila

Born on August 15th, 1955 in Sevilla, Antonio Maria Avila Álvarez studied Political Sciences, Law and Economics. He has been an associate teacher of Constitutional law until 1986, associate teacher of Foreign Trade (University Carlos III) from 1994 to 1996, and from 1997 teacher of the same matter in TPGA of the Autonomous University of Madrid. CECO's teacher, he gives classes to the Master of Foreign Trade and Trade policy in the University Carlos III, Santiago de Compostela, Alcalá de Henares and University Institute Carlos V of the Autonomous University of Madrid.

Tiit Aleksejev

Tiit Aleksejev (b.1968) graduated from the University of Tartu with a master’s degree in Medieval History. He has worked as a diplomat in Paris and Brussels, and currently lives in Tallinn. His first short story, Tartu rahu, won the annual award from the literary magazine Looming in 1999. His first novel, Valge kuningriik, a thriller whose action unfolds in Paris and retrospectively in Afghanistan in the 1980s, was awarded the Betti Alver Prize in 2006 for best debut novel.

Audinga Peluritytė-Tikuišienė

Audinga Peluritytė-Tikuišienė (PhD., Assoc. Prof. at Vilnius University) was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. She has been a literary critic since 1992. From 2003, she published several research studies about contemporary Lithuanian literature; her last book being “Architectural Boundary: Contemporary Lithuanian Literature and contexts” (2016).

Alma Čaušević

Alma Čaušević, B.Sc. in Cultural Studies and B.Sc. in Cultural Anthropology, is a manager in the field of culture. In 2009 and 2010, she worked as an independent researcher in cultural anthropology. In 2010, she participated in the organization and execution of the World Literatures Fabula festival that was carried out in the framework of the World Book Capital Ljubljana. She also served as Executive Producer for Zavod En-Knap during that time.

Ivan Bevc

Born in Belgrade in 1972, Ivan has worked in publishing, marketing and journalism for many years. He founded “Booka” publishing house in 2010 and, since then, published more than 150 books of the best contemporary authors, including Michel Houellebecq, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Elena Ferrante, Leila Slimani, Miljenko Jergović, and Dubravka Ugrešić. He owns two bookshops in Belgrade.

Lindita Rugova

Lindita Rugova holds a Doctoral Degree in Philological Sciences from the University of Prishtina. Since 1998, she as been an Associate Professor of English Language and Literature at the same University, becoming Dean of the Faculty of Philology in 2016. Her lectures ranges from Contrastive Linguistics, Semantics, Grammar and Syntax. Dozens of her articles have been published in numerous international scientific publications. She has been a guest lecturer for Universities in Prague, Copenhagen, Berlin, Rende, Naples and Zabreb.