2021

Mariana Cocieru, PhD, is head of the Folklore Sector of the Institute of Romanian Philology „B. P.-Hasdeu”. She is especially interested in intangible cultural heritage, folklore, ethnography, ethnology, and literature. She published several books, including Ethnofolkloric constituents in the prose of Romanian writers from Bessarabia (1960–1980) (Chisinau, 2018, and coordinated several multimedia publications, including Voice archive: Interviews with personalities in the field of culture (in 20 volumes) (Chisinau, 2016, 2019).

Born in 1973, he holds Master degrees in Marketing and Management as well as Law from the University of National and World Economy, Sofia. He has been selling books for more that 25 years and has experience in various forms of trade - direct sales, online - including 15 years as a sales manager at one of the largest bookshop chains in Bulgaria.Since 2012, he is a managing partner in Bookoholic Ltd, an import and wholesale company, trading with English, German, French, Spanish and Bulgarian books.

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.

José Jorge Letria is a poet, writer, playwright and journalist born in Cascais in 1951. Awarded with numerous literary prizes, his works are translated in over a dozen languages, with both national and international awards. He is also a song writer and author of radio and television programs. He has a PhD in Communication Sciences and is President of the Portuguese Society of Authors.

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. 

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.

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.

Armen Ohanyan (b.1979; pen name Armen of Armenia) is a fiction writer, essayist and literary translator. He holds a BA in philosophy from Yerevan State University and the graduate certificate in Translation (CTRA) from American University of Armenia. He’s the author of the story collection [The Return of Kikos], and the trilogy of novels [Mommyland], where for the first time in Armenian literature LGBT people are presented under a positive light. He’s the president of Armenian PEN Center (since 2017), board member of TIAC and Human Rights House Yerevan.

Leanne Ellul lectures in Maltese language and literature at the Ġ.F Abela Junior College as part of the University of Malta. She writes both poetry and prose. In the past she has written for theatre and still writes both textbooks and readers for children. Ellul has also translated a number of works to Maltese. She is part of a number of entities that have the Maltese language and culture at heart, namely Inizjamed and HELA.