Kristian Novak

Invitado de Honor

Kristian Novak (Baden-Baden, 1979) graduated in Croatian and German Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 2005 and earned his PhD from Postgraduate Linguistics Studies in 2011. He holds a lectureship with the Department of Croatian Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka and teaches at the Department of German Studies in Zagreb. Novak’s chief areas of research include historical sociolinguistics, multilingualism (Croatian–German language and culture contacts) and national identity.
Kristian Novak was standard member of Croatian karate national team from 1996 to 2009, winning a range of individual and team awards at national and global karate championships.
His highly acclaimed second novel Črna mati zemla (2013) was shortlisted for the Kiklop Award in 2013 and named the best fictional prose of the year by Jutarnji list. The novel won the 2014 T-portal Prize for best novel in 2013. His novel Gypsy, But the Most Beautiful (2016) was awarded with Fran Galović Award, Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Award and T-portal prize.

María Dueñas

Invitado de Honor

Maria Dueñas is a Spanish fiction writer, born in 1964. She is the author of five novels: El  tiempo entre costuras (2009), Misión Olvido (20012), La Templanza (2015), Las hijas del  Capitán (2018), and Sira (2021). Her books have been translated into more than thirty  languages, and adapted into television series. Formerly a university professor, she holds an MA  in Spanish and a PhD in English Studies. She currently splits her days between Madrid and the  Mediterranean. 

Cristina Sandu

Invitado de Honor

Cristina Sandu is a Finnish novelist and translator. Her debut novel Valas nimeltä Goliat [The Whale Called Goliath] (2017) was nominated for the Finlandia Prize. Her following novel Vesileikit (2019) won the Toisinkoinen Literary Prize for the best second book in Finland. It was translated by the author into English and published in Britain two years later as The Union of Synchronized Swimmers, after which it was shortlisted for The Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize in 2022. Her third novel Tanskalainen retkikunta [The Danish Expedition] will be published in 2024; it is based on the real story of a failed Danish colony in Nicaragua. Her work has been translated into English, Dutch, French, Catalan, Spanish, and Romanian.

Kallia Papadaki

Invitado de Honor

Kallia Papadaki was born in Didymoteicho in 1978 and grew up in Thessaloniki. She studied economics in Bard College and Brandeis University, USA and directing in the Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos. 

Her novel Δενδρίτες (Dendrites, Polis Editions) received a Centre National du Livre (CNL) development grant and was awarded the Young Author Award from the Greek literary journal Clepsydra in 2016, and the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL) in 2017. It has so far been translated into 10 languages. Her short story collection Ο ήχος του ακάλυπτου (The Back lot sound, Polis Editions), was awarded the prize for best new author from the Diavazo literary magazine in 2010. In 2011, her short story Άγης και Μαίρη (Agis and Mary) represented Greece as part of Scritture Giovanni in the Berlin, Madova, and Hay literary festivals. 

She is a professional author, screenwriter and script consultant and works as a commissioning editor in film and television. Her first feature script for Penny Panayotopoulou’s Greco-German coproduced film September won the International Balkan Fund Script Development Award in 2010, received a Nipkow scholarship in Berlin. The film premiered at the official competition of the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Her second feature script Wishbone is a Greek-French-German-Cyrpiot coproduction currently in post-production. Her theatrical play Roots of Cotton was commissioned by the Athens Epidaurus festival and performed in the little theatre at the ancient city of Epidaurus in summer of 2022. Her short film L’ acqua che passa, financed by the Greek film Centre, will premiere at the national competition of 46th Drama International Short Film Festival. 

She teaches screenwriting in the Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos and creative writing in the post-graduate department of the Metropolitan College in Athens.

Mario Martz

Nicaragua, 1988. Estudió una maestría en Escritura Creativa en la Universidad de Texas, en El Paso. Es autor de Viaje al reino de los tristes (2010), y de Los jóvenes no pueden volver a casa (2017), el cual fue elegido por la BBC Mundo como una referencia literaria para comprender la Centroamérica de hoy. Asimismo, la Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara lo incluyó ese año en sus programas literarios Latinoamérica Viva y Nombrar a Centroamérica como parte de los autores más relevantes de la región. Textos suyos han sido traducidos al inglés, francés e italiano, y ha publicado poesía, entrevistas, relatos y piezas de no ficción en distintos periódicos y revistas, entre las que destacan Río Grande Review, Eñe, The New York Times, The Offing Magazine,The Common Magazine, entre otras.

Other activities involving the participant:

The Poetry Room