Arevik Ashkharoyan is a literary agent with 10-year experience in publishing. In 2016, she established ARI Literary and Talent Agency, representing a dozen of writers of Armenian origin from all over the world. In 2018, she also founded ARI Literature Foundation, a non-profit organization implementing projects aimed at development of local book market, promotion of reading and writing in Armenia and enhancing international dialogue.
Grzegorz Jankowicz Ph.D. (1978) is a literary critic, translator and philosopher specialized on literature. He is the programme director of the Conrad Festival, the cultural editor of the “Tygodnik Powszechny” weekly paper, and the director of several literary programmes of the Tygodnik Powszechny Foundation. He also works at the literary department office of Kraków Festival.
Annina Rabe is a literary critic for daily newspaper Expressen and the Swedish Public Radio, among others. She regularly lectures on contemporary Swedish literature, both in Sweden and abroad.
Stanislas Rigot is a bookseller at the Lamartine bookshop in Paris.
Adam Fathi (real name: GASMI Fathi) is a Tunisian poet and translator born in 1957. He published several poetry collections including: Sept lunes pour la gardienne de la tour ('Seven moons for the tower keeper'), 1982 ; Chants pour la fleur de poussière ('Songs for the dust flower'), 1991 ; Le souffleur de verre aveugle ('The blind glassblower'), 2011.
Ludmila Şimanschi, PhD, is an associate professor. In 1999, she first graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Alecu Russo State University in Balti, before obtaining a Master in Romanian Philology and Languages at the same university in 2008. In 2014, she bacame Doctor in Philology after supporting her PhD research thesis on “(Auto) irony and (parody) in The Levant by Mircea Cărtărescu”. Apart from her activities as a scientific researcher, she is a senior specialist in the Socio-Human Sciences Section of ASM, as well as the director of the Literary and Folklore Center of the “B.
Sandeep Mahal is director of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature. She is passionate about bringing books, words and ideas to the streets of Nottingham, so everyone, everywhere gets the chance to be creative with literature. Before arriving in Nottingham, Sandeep spent ten years working in public libraries and many years in the UK publishing environment, transforming cooperation between UK publishers and the UK public library network.
Velizara Dobreva has thirty years of experience in publishing. She is executive director of Story House Egmont Bulgaria, a leading publishing house of children’s books, fiction, and non-fiction in Bulgaria. She is president of the Bulgarian Book Association since 2017.
Dr. Brigitte Schwens-Harrant, born 1967 in Wels, is head of the feature section of the weekly newspaper "Die Furche" in Vienna. She has written numerous publications on Austrian and international contemporary literature. She received Austrian State Prize for Literary Criticism in 2015.
Lena is a German fiction writer and narrative designer for computer games. She's also the national chairperson of the Association of German Authors (Verband deutscher Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller (VS in ver.di)) and co-founder of Phantastik-Autoren-Netzwerk (PAN) e.V. She was a member of the PAN board for 4 years and in this capacity, she co-founded the Netzwerk Autorenrechte (Network Author’s Rights) in 2016 with, among others, Nina George and Eva Leipprand. The Network joins nine (now 13) authors' associations for political purposes.
