Ognjen Spahić

Ognjen Spahić was born in 1977 in Podgorica, Montenegro. He published collections of short stories Sve to (All of That, 2001), Zimska potraga (Winter Search, 2007) and Puna glava radosti (A Head Full of Joy, 2014) for which he received the European Union Prize for Literature in 2014. His novel Hansenova djeca (Hansen’s Children, 2004) won him the Meša Selimović prize for 2005, awarded to the best new novel from Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Chloé Billon

Chloé Billon (born 1986 in Nantes, France) is a literary translator and conference interpreter. After graduating in humanities with a focus on English and German literature, having in the meanwhile begun to travel regularly to former Yugoslavia, she studied Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian languages and cultures at the Inalco (French National Institute for Eastern languages and cultures), and lived in Belgrade and Zagreb.

Tinna Ásgeirsdóttir

Tinna Ásgeirsdóttir is a translator and project manager. Ásgeirsdóttir has studied creative writing and translations at the University of Iceland and graduated with degrees in both philospohy and editing and publishing. She works part time as a project manager at the Writers’ Union of Iceland and as a translator of Swedish fiction. Among writers that she has translated are renowned author and playwright Sara Stridsberg, Matthias Edvardsson and Nina Wähä. Ásgeirsdóttir has been a jury member at both the Icelandic Translation Prize and Reykjavik City Children‘s Literary Prize.

Ola Hnatiuk

Ola Hnatiuk is a translator, essayist and cultural diplomat. She is also professor of Cultural Studies at Warsaw University and associate professor at Kyiv Mohyla Academy. She is the author of several books of essays on the intellectual history of Eastern Central Europe.

Pavel Mandys

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).

Inga Bodnarjuka-Mrazauskas

Inga Bodnarjuka–Mrazauskas is the executive manager of the Latvian literature export platform «Latvian Literature», responsible for developing and implementing strategy for promotion of Latvian literature abroad, which includes participation in international book fairs, organizing foreign publisher, media and festival visits, translation workshops, capacity building activities for translators and publishers, culture programs abroad, etc.

Entela Kasi

Entela Kasi is a poetess, novelist, translator and essayist. She is the president of the Albanian PEN Centre and a member of the ‘In search Committee Board’ of PEN International. She writes for Albanian journals and daily press, especially focusing on social movements, culture and politics. She has been invited as a guest writer by different Universities in Albania and abroad.

Vlatko Simunović

Born in 1965. He spent his childhood, boyhood and youth in the Niksic suburb of Straševina. He graduated from the Department of Serbo-Croatian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niksic. He has been involved in journalism and literary criticism since 1995. He is the author of the books “Records” and “Conversations”. He is the editor of the Culture section of the Montenegrin daily Pobjeda. He works in Podgorica.