2015

Carolina Schutti was born in 1976 in Innsbruck, where she still lives. She studied German philology, English and American Studies, concert guitar and classical voice. After several years of teaching and following her PhD on Elias Canetti, she taught at the University of Florence, followed by a post as a research assistant at Literaturhaus am Inn. From 2009-2013 she was a board member of Brenner Forum in Innsbruck as well as a member of the board of trustees of Brenner-Archiv. Her publications include essays on literary studies, literary reviews and other texts in literary magazines.

Edina Szvoren was born in 1974 in Budapest. An alumni of Béla Bartók Music High School, she currently teaches solfeggio and music theory there. She holds a degree as chorus-master from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. She has had work published regularly since 2005, including two works of prose. Her work has been recognized by the following awards: the Sándor Bródy prize for the best first prose book of the year in 2011, the Artisjus Prize and the Attila József Prize.

Undinė Radzevičiūtė was born in 1967. She graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts where she studied art history, theory and criticism. She worked for ten years as a creative director for international advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett.

Her first short novel was published in 2003 and was favourably reviewed. Fishes and Dragons is her fourth and biggest book so far. Two of her earlier novels have been translated into Russian, and one into Estonian. Her new novel is due to be published in 2015.

David Machado was born in Lisbon in 1978. He has a degree in economics from ISEG, Lisbon's School of Economics and Management, but soon devoted himself to writing fiction and children's literature.

In 2005, he was awarded the Branquinho da Fonseca Prize for his children's book A Noite dos Animais Inventados and, in 2010, he was awarded the SPA/RTP Author Prize, in the category for Best Children and Youth book, for O Tubarão na Banheira.

Having started out as a poet, Gaëlle Josse’s debut novel, Les heures silencieuses (The Quiet Hours) was published in 2011. It was followed by Nos vies désaccordées (Our Out of Tune Lives) in 2012 and Noces de neige (Snow Wedding) in 2013.

Writer and musician Lorenzo Amurri was born in Rome in 1971. As a musician, he has collaborated with a variety of Italian artists including Tiromancino and Franco Califano. His life story is marked by a tragic skiing accident that made him a quadriplegic. It was after this accident that he decided to devote himself to writing, first through a blog and then via short stories, one of which was published in the collection Amore Caro. Apnea is his first novel.

Magdalena Parys (born 1971) is a poet, writer and translator. She is the founder of the Polish-German literary magazine Squaws, and a graduate of Polish philology and pedagogy at Humboldt University in Berlin.

Sara Stridsberg, born in 1972, is a writer and playwright. Her first novel Happy Sally was published in 2004, and her breakthrough came two years later with the publication of The Faculty of Dreams, her second novel. Her third novel, Darling River, was published in 2010.

In addition to several important prizes, she has been shortlisted for the prestigious August Prize three times, the latest in 2012 for her collection of plays, Medealand. Stridsberg lives in Stockholm.

Ida Hegazi Høyer, born in 1981, is a Norwegian citizen with Danish-Egyptian ancestors. Her roots are in Lofoten in the north of Norway, but she grew up in Oslo. Høyer has studied sociology and worked in a clothing store, and she now writes and lives in Oslomarka – the woodlands surrounding Oslo. She is the author of three novels: her debut, Under the World, was published in autumn 2012, followed by Out in 2013 and Forgive Me in 2014. In August 2014 she was the recipient of Norway’s Bjørnsonstipendet, awarded to a prominent young talent.

Luka Bekavac, born in 1976 in Osijek, is a writer, translator and literary theorist. He teaches at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb University (Comparative Literature Department) and has contributed articles on philosophy, literary theory, music and literature to a number of magazines, radio programmes and peer-reviewed publications, including Performance Research, Frakcija, Filozofska istraživanja and Književna smotra.