Nathalie Skowronek

Nathalie Skowronek was born in Brussels in 1973. After studying literature, she worked in publishing before going into women’s fashion for 7 years. She returned to literature in 2004, when she created the editor collection La Plume et le Pinceau for the publishing house Complexe. At the age of 37, she published her first novel, Karen et moi (Arléa, 2011), the first volume of a family trilogy which takes the reader from the Polish shtetls on the road to Auschwitz. Two novels, Max, en apparence (Arléa, 2013) and Un monde sur mesure (Grasset, 2017), followed.

Klaus Kowalke

Born in 1967 in Helmstedt/Niedersachsen, Klaus Kowalke is a Philosopher, Historian and Bookseller. He was awarded “Best Bookshop in Germany 2018” by the Federal Government Comissioner for Culture and the Media (Federal Government).

Anne Merethe K. Prinos

Anne Merethe K. Prinos (53) is secretary general in Norwegian Critics' Association. She holds a master in literature from the University of Oslo and has been working as a freelance literary critic in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten for almost 20 years.

Kristian Bang Foss

Kristian Bang Foss (born 1977) is a Danish writer. His debut novel Fiskens vindue (The Window of the Fish, 2004) was acclaimed by critics. This was followed by Stormen i 99 (The Storm in 99, 2008). He won the EU Prize for Literature for his novel Døden kører Audi (Death drives an Audi, 2012). His latest novel is called Frank vender hjem (Frank comes home, 2019).

Đorđe Krajišnik

Đorđe Krajišnik is a literary critic and a journalist at the Oslobođenje daily newspaper and the Dani magazine. In October 2017, he worked as a resident for the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel. His literary critiques and other texts have been published in magazines and on websites across the Yugosphere. His publications have been translated into English, German and Albanian. He reviewed and edited several books.

Helén Foss

Helén Foss has worked nearly 30 years in bookselling. She started out as part time help in a small bookshop while taking flying lessons, but advanced and was responsible for books in general in a larger bookshop. After taking the bookselling trade school, she became manager in very large bookshop just outside of Oslo. The last 18 years, she has worked as CEO for the independent bookshops Fri Bokhandel SA. She is a board member in the Norwegian Bookseller Association and a board member at Bokbasen, a company for shared metadata for the Norwegian book industry.

Claude Conter

Claude D. Conter (born 1974) is a scientific collaborator (2004-2008), curator (2008-2012) and, since 2012, director of the National Literature Centre of Mersch. He studied German Literature and Mass Communication in Bamberg and Berlin. He was scientific collaborator for the German Literature Department of Bamberg. He completed his Phd in 2003. From 2004 to 2008 he worked as scientific collaborator for the same department in Munich. In 2017, he was guest lecturer at the University of Sewanee (TN, USA).