Ersi Sotiropoulos

Invitado de Honor

Ersi Sotiropoulos is a poet, novelist, and short story writer. Her work has been translated into many languages and she is the recipient of prestigious prizes in Greece and abroad, including the National Literature Prize (twice), the Book Critics’ Award, and the Athens Academy Prize. She has also received the Dante Alighieri Poetry Prize in Italy and has been twice shortlisted for the European Book Prize. Her novel What’s Left of the Night won the Mediterranean Prize for Best Foreign Novel in France and the ALTA National Award in the U.S. (translation: Karen Emmerich.) In spring 2022, she was appointed the Harman Writer in Residence at Baruch College in New York. 
In addition to her fiction and poetry, she has been involved in many other artistic projects: in particular, working in the field of visual poetry, artists' books and video art. She has also written scripts for film and television. She served for nine years as the cultural attaché of the Greek Embassy in Rome and has been a Fellow at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, at Princeton University, at Schloss Wiepersdorf in Germany, at the Sacatar Foundation in Brazil, at Villa Yourcenar in France, at the Shanghai Writing Program, at the Arctic Circle Program, at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination and others. She lives in Athens, Greece.

Kai Aareleid

Invitado de Honor

Kai Aareleid (born 1972 in Tartu, Estonia) is an award-winning Estonian writer and literary translator. She has published novels, poetry, short stories and plays. 
Her second novel Linnade põletamine (2016) has been translated into several languages and nominated for various awards. The Spanish translation, Ciudades quemadas, translated by Consuelo Rubio Alcover, will be published by West Indies in autumn 2023.
Aareleid’s third novel Vaikne ookean (Pacific Ocean, 2022) won several local and international prizes, among them The Baltic Assembly Prize for Literature. Apart from her career as a writer, Aareleid is a prolific literary translator from Finnish, English and Spanish into her native Estonian. 
She has also worked as a publisher and literary agent, mentored emerging translators and taught courses of literary translation and drama translation to university students.

Frank Westerman

Invitado de Honor

(1964) Frank is a Dutch writer and former journalist living in Amsterdam. He studied tropical agriculture at Wageningen University, lived for a year in Peru among the Aymara-indians of the Andes and worked as a newspaper correspondent in Belgrade during violent the break-up of Yugoslavia and afterwards in Moscow where he witnessed how Vladimir Putin came to power. Frank is currently a full-time writer of literary non-fiction books, among which are Engineers of the Soul (2002), Ararat (2007), Brother Mendel’s Perfect Horse (2011), Choke Valley (2013), We Hominids (2018) and The Cosmic Comedy (2021). With over sixty translations in fifteen languages his work is reaching an international audience.

Other activities involving the participant:

Book promotion in a digital world. What do the writers tell us?

Jorge F. Hernández

(Ciudad de México, 1962) 

Se considera guanajuatense por su extensa familia y cuevanense por culpa de Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Hernández vivió sus primeros años de vida en Colonia, Alemania, y de los dos a los catorce años de edad en Washington, DC, y en el bosque que puebla las páginas de Un bosque flotante. Es historiador y su tesis de licenciatura, La soledad del silencio. Microhistoria del Santuario de Atotonilco, fue publicada en 1991, de la que obtuvo el Premio Nacional de Historia Regional con Mención Honorífica. La emperatriz de Lavapiés, su primera novela, fue publicada en Alfaguara en 1997, y en 2000 ganó el Premio Nacional de Cuento Efrén Hernández por su relato Noche de ronda.
Es autor de cinco libros de cuentos, dos volúmenes de cuentínimos y seis libros de ensayo y crónica. Ha sido colaborador en diversos medios como las revistas Vuelta, de Octavio Paz, y Cambio, de Gabriel García Márquez, así como firma columnista del diario El País y Milenio.
Actualmente es librero en Pérgamo, la librería más antigua de Madrid… rescatada del abismo.

Other activities involving the participant:

Opening talk: Pure Pergamon...
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Ersi Sotiropoulos

Invitado de Honor

Ersi Sotiropoulos is a poet, novelist, and short story writer. Her work has been translated into many languages and she is the recipient of prestigious prizes in Greece and abroad, including the National Literature Prize (twice), the Book Critics’ Award, and the Athens Academy Prize. She has also received the Dante Alighieri Poetry Prize in Italy and has been twice shortlisted for the European Book Prize. Her novel What’s Left of the Night won the Mediterranean Prize for Best Foreign Novel in France and the ALTA National Award in the U.S. (translation: Karen Emmerich.) In spring 2022, she was appointed the Harman Writer in Residence at Baruch College in New York. 
In addition to her fiction and poetry, she has been involved in many other artistic projects: in particular, working in the field of visual poetry, artists' books and video art. She has also written scripts for film and television. She served for nine years as the cultural attaché of the Greek Embassy in Rome and has been a Fellow at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, at Princeton University, at Schloss Wiepersdorf in Germany, at the Sacatar Foundation in Brazil, at Villa Yourcenar in France, at the Shanghai Writing Program, at the Arctic Circle Program, at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination and others. She lives in Athens, Greece.

José Luís Peixoto

Invitado de Honor

(Galveias, Portugal, 1974) es uno de los autores más destacados de la literatura portuguesa contemporánea. Su obra figura en decenas de antologías, ha sido traducida a más de treinta idiomas y se estudia en múltiples universidades. Su primera novela, Nadie nos mira, fue galardonada con el Premio José Saramago en 2001. Desde entonces ha publicado Te me moriste, Cementerio de pianos (Premio Cálamo Otra Mirada, España), Una casa en la oscuridad (Premio Libro de Europa, Italia), Galveias (Premio Océanos, Brasil, y Best Translation Award, Japón), En tu vientre, autobiografía, y Comida de domingo. Todas estas obras están disponibles en México.

Other activities involving the participant:

From the Pessoa bookstore to Peixoto: trips, images and sensations

Nora Ikstena

Invitado de Honor

Nora Ikstena (1969) is a prose writer and essayist. Ikstena is one of the most visible, and influential prose writers in Latvia, known for elaborate style and detailed approach to language. After obtaining a degree in Philology from the University of Latvia in 1992, she went on to study English literature at Columbia University. In her prose, Nora Ikstena often reflects on life, love, death, and faith. Soviet Milk (2015, shortlisted for the Annual Literature Award for best prose, translated into Japanese, German, Croatian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Macedonian, English, Hungarian, Italian, Ukrainian, Russian, Albanian, Georgian, Arabic, Spanish, Swedish, Faroese, Polish, Norwegian, Indonesian and Greek, Besa (2012), Celebration of Life (1998, translated into Norwegian, Italian, Danish, Swedish), The Virgin's Lesson (2001) are some of her most widely appreciated novels. The novel Amour Fou has been staged for theatre and published in Russian (2010). Ikstena is also a prolific author of biographical fiction, non-fiction, scripts, essays, and collections of short prose. Her collection Life Stories (2004) was published in English in 2013, and Hindi in 2015. Her story Elza Kuga’s Old Age Dementia was included in the "Best European Fiction 2011" anthology. Ikstena is an active participant in Latvia's cultural and political life, and a co-founder of the International Writers and Translators’ House in Ventspils. In 2006, she received the Baltic Assembly Prize in literature. 
In 2023, the movie Soviet Milk, based on the bestseller, was released (Film Studio DEVIŅI). In 2023 Soviet Milk will be published in Danish, Dutch and Czech and The Glistening of Water will be published in Spanish. 

Karmele Jaio

Karmele Jaio Eiguren (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1970) has written three novels –Amaren eskuak (My Mother’s Hands), Musika airean (Music in the air) and Aitaren etxea (My father’s house) –, three collections of stories –Hamabost zauri (Fifteen Wounds), Zu bezain ahul (As Weak As You) and Ez naiz ni (Not Me)– and a book of poetry, Orain hilak ditugu. Amaren eskuak, one of the best-selling books in Basque Literature, has been adapted for the screen and her stories have also been adapted for the theater and published in some antologies: Best European Fiction 2017 and in The Penguin book of Spanish short stories among others. The English translation of Amaren Eskuak, My mother’s hands won the English Pen Translation Award and the novel Aitaren etxea has won the Euskadi Prize of Literature, the highest award in Basque literature.

Mária Ferencuhová

Invitado de Honor

Mária Ferenčuhová (born 1975 in Bratislava, Slovakia) graduated in film screenwriting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (VŠMU) and completed her doctoral studies in film history and theory at VŠMU and in linguistics at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, France. In the years 2012 – 2018 she worked as associate professor of history and theory of documentary at VŠMU in Bratislava and at Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica.
She is author/co-author of three books on film (Odložený čas. Filmové pramene, historiografia, dokumentárny film / Differed Time. Film Sources, Historiography, Documentary, 2009; Dokumentárny film v krajinách V4 / Documentary in V4 Countries, 2014; Nový slovenský film / New Slovak Cinema, 2015). 
She published five books of poetry: Skryté titulky (Hidden Subtitles, 2003), Princíp neistoty (The Uncertainty Principle, 2008), Ohrozený druh (Endangered Species, 2012), Imunita (Immunity, 2016) and Černozem (Black Earth, 2020). Her fourth book, Imunita, awarded several prizes and was translated into Serbian, Slovenian, Ukrainian and French. Černozem is now available in Spanish (Tierra Negra, Vaso roto, 2022).
Ferenčuhová’s selected poems were published in English (Tidal Events, Shearsman Books, 2018), Macedonian (Земја на срцето, Vostok Publishing, 2018) Greek (Palirroiaka Gegonota, Vakxikon, 2019) and German (Die Fähigkeit zur Abwehr, hochroth, 2023).
She now works as a film critic for the film monthly Film.sk and as a film researcher for Slovak Film Institute in Bratislava. She is also a freelance translator from French; she translates prose, poetry and essays on film, media, and visual culture.

Other activities involving the participant:

The Poetry Room

Robert Perisic

Invitado de Honor

Robert Perišić (Split, 1969) is a prominent Croatian writer and journalist. He writes poetry, fiction and plays, both for theatre and the big screen; he wrote the screenplay for Dalibor Matanić's film Sto minuta Slave (100 Minutes of Glory, 2004). He worked as an editor of magazines Godine and Godine nove, and published literary reviews in the weekly magazine Feral Tribune.
His novel Our Man in Iraq (2007) was a bestseller in Croatia and received the prestigious Croatian literary award Jutarnji list. The German edition of the novel received Literaturpreis der Steiermärkischen Sparkasse 2011 in Graz, Austria, while the US edition won wide and unanimously positive press coverage. His translated works have been published in UK, US, Sweden, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Austria, Italy, Turkey, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Ilija Trojanow

Invitado de Honor

(Sofía, Bulgaria, 1965)

En 1971 sus padres escaparon de Yugoslavia a Italia, para terminar en Alemania, donde recibieron asilo político. Después de un año, la familia se trasladó a Kenia. Más tarde estudió derecho y etnología en Múnich. En 1989 fundó la editorial Marino, que se centró en la literatura africana. En 1998 se mudó a Bombay y en 2003 a Ciudad del Cabo, para después instalarse en Viena. De entre sus obras traducidas resaltan El coleccionista de mundos (2008) o Deshielo (2011). En 1995 ganó el Premio alemán Ingeborg Bachmann. Ha escrito una veintena de libros que abarcan diversos géneros como novela, bitácora de viaje, reportaje y ensayo político. Su obra más conocida es El coleccionista de mundos, traducida a 30 idiomas.

Judith Schalansky

Invitado de Honor

Judith Schalansky is a trained designer and sees herself as someone who creates rather than writes books. She believes one cannot separate the form from the content, which distinguishes her books from most publications, and she designs them entirely herself. Her originality, time span and wingspan as a writer and book artist have been greatly celebrated. She was born in Greifswald in 1980, studied Art History and Communication Design and she lives in Berlin. Her work, which includes the internationally successful bestsellers Atlas der abgelegenen Inseln (2009), the Bildungsroman Der Hals der Giraffe (2011) and her recent book Verzeichnis einiger Verluste (2018), has been translated into more than twenty-five languages, has won numerous prizes and has inspired other artists. She also works as an editor of the prestigious natural history list Naturkunden at Matthes und Seitz. In 2011 an asteroid was named after her and in 2022 she was chosen as the 9th contributor to Oslo’s Future Library, a 100-year-long art project, for which Schalansky handed over a secret manuscript in spring 2023.

Zeki Ali

Invitado de Honor

Zeki Ali is a Cypriot poet who writes in Turkish. He was born in 1951 in Nicosia, Cyprus. He lived in Canada with his family between 1973 and 1992. His involvement with literature elevated after his re-settlement in Cyprus. Today, he remains one of the most individual voices in Turkish poetry with 11 books of poetry and the curator of Anthology of Death Poetry (Turkish Cypriot poetry on death topic). His first collection of poetry was published in 1970. He was one of the editors for Pygmalion, a literary review and currently one of the editors of İnsanzamanmekan. His work appeared in many different literary reviews and anthologies and translated into many languages including Greek, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Persian. He was the president of Cypriot Artists and Writers Union for two periods and today he continues his involvements with their activities. He sometimes writes in English and translates poetry from other languages. He is also a peace activist who formed the first bi-communal music group Poetz4Peace with Haji Mike, a poet- musician from south of the Cyprus Greenline. Together they released an album, gave concerts including one in Sierra Nevada Festival in US and two concerts in France. Between 1992 and 2014 he hosted several alternative music programs for the state radio. Recently he was featured in a Spanish-Cypriot poetry anthology titled Poesia Sin Fronteras V.
His published books are: Bayan Mavi (Lady Blue), Yolcukuş (Travelbird), Rüzgar Kasideleri (Wind Casidas), Sonsuz Bir Efsane (An Endless Myth), Tenden Daha Derinde (Deeper Than Skin), Sürüden Ayrılan Şaman (The Shamen Who Deserted the Crowd), Taş Uyur Ruh Gezer (Stone Sleeps Spirit Wanders), Kuş Dili (Bird Language)
Zamansız (Timeless). Tuhaf İstasyon (Strange Station). Sinemasal (Cinematale)

Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin

Invitado de Honor

Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin is an Irish-language writer, screenwriter, songwriter and biographer based in Galway, Ireland. His book Madame Lazare was chosen as the Irish Language Book of the Year at the 2021 Irish Book Awards. The European Union Prize for Literature jury in 2022 recognised Madame Lazare with a Special Mention. In 2023, Madame Lazare was published in Estonian in a direct translation from the Irish language by Indrek Õis. Translation into the Serbian and German languages are currently in development. His literary biography of Antaine Ó Raiftearaí, Mise Raiftearaí an Fíodóir Focal, was awarded the Gradam Uí Shúilleabháin in 2015 (Irish language book of the year). His book The Year of Songs was awarded the Special Judges' Award at the Irish Children's Book of the Year Awards in 2017. Mac Dhonnagáin's work in the Irish language has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Danish, Portuguese and Turkish, amongst others. 

Tatiana Tîbuleac

Invitado de Honor

Hija única de un periodista y de la correctora de un periódico, ya en la universidad empezó a colaborar con diversos medios en calidad de traductora, correctora y reportera, mientras realizaba sus estudios de periodismo y comunicación. Se dio a conocer en 1995, cuando comenzó a publicar la columna “Historias verdaderas” en el periódico Flux, uno de los diarios más importantes en lengua rumana. 
En 2007 abandonó el periodismo para dedicarse por entero a la escritura, y al año siguiente se mudó a París. El verano en que mi madre tuvo los ojos verdes (2016; Impedimenta 2019), su primera novela impactó, tanto a la crítica como a los lectores de Rumanía. Se ha traducido a varios idiomas, y ha convertido en un auténtico fenómeno literario, con adaptaciones para el teatro, y cosechado importantes reconocimientos en España, como el Premio Cálamo Libro del año 2019, el Premio Las Librerías Recomiendan 2020 y el Premio Novela Europea Casino de Santiago 2020. 
Su segunda novela, El jardín de vidrio (2018; Impedimenta 2021), se alzó con el Premio de Literatura de la Unión Europea en 2019. 
Tatiana Tîbuleac vive y trabaja actualmente en París.

Other activities involving the participant:

The Pleasure of Reading Galas

Berta Dávila

Invitado de Honor

(Santiago de Compostela, 1987)

Berta is a writer and poet. She has twice received the Spanish Critics Award in Galician language, for the poetry collection Raíz da fenda (2013) and the novel Carrusel (2019), translated into Spanish and published in Spain (2021) and Argentina (2022). She is also the author of O derradeiro libro de Emma Olsen (2013), which was chosen as the best book of fiction of 2013 by the Galician Publishers' Association, adapted as a graphic novel and translated into Spanish (2014) and into Italian (2022). The novel was included amongst the best foreing books of 2022 in the "classifica di qualità" of the magazine L'indiscreto. She has won several of the most important literary awards in the Galician language, such as the Xerais Prize for her latest novel, Os seres queridos (2022) which was published simultaneously in Galician and Spanish, and translated into English in 2023.

Jacek Dukaj

Invitado de Honor

(1974) prose-writer, philosopher by education. Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature (2009) for his novel Ice. His works have been translated into English, German, Russian, Czech, Slovak, Macedonian, Hungarian, Italian, Bulgarian, Azerbaijani and recently his novel The cathedral was translated into Spanish (La Catedral) and brought out by the publishing group Fondo de Cultura Económica (supported financially by the Polish Book Institute) to the Mexican market last year. He made his debut very early, at sixteen years old, in the journal Fantastyka, and quickly gained recognition as one of the most promising writers of literature of the fantastic (some consider him a successor to Stanisław Lem). He has been many times given the Janusz A. Zajdel Award, which has a great deal of prestige in fantasy circles. Tomasz Bagiński made an animated film called Cathedral based on motifs from a Dukaj short story, garnering an Oscar nomination in the process. In his first collection of prose, Xavras Wyżryn (1997), Dukaj created an alternate vision of Polish history. His following books – including the novels Black Oceans, Extensa, Other Songs, and An ideal Imperfection – confirmed his ability to make free use of various fantastical prose conventions, with even a certain virtuosity, putting elements of science fiction, fantasy and cyber-punk into the mix. Dukaj has an extraordinary facility for creating complete fictional worlds in his prose, imagined down to the minutest detail, and based on coherent philosophical or scientific principles. He sometimes creates them as thought experiments; for example, in Other Songs the author tried to show how the world would look if the ancient Greek philosophers were right in how they saw its nature and mechanisms. Generally, however, the writer’s incredible inventiveness serves to contemplate the possible outcomes of the development of civilization and evolution of mankind (in An Ideal Imperfection, a novel that takes place in the 29th century, he describes post-human creatures, among others). A major advantage of Dukaj’s prose is his sharply outlined protagonists; they are often people who must play vital roles in the history of a given society, but who are marked by some flaw, and thus are forced to grapple with themselves, such as Hieronim Berbelek in Other Songs or Adam Zamojski in An Ideal Imperfection. Dukaj’s books are not only impeccable in terms of technique, they also appeal to readers through their refined humor and inventive language (the writer created a completely new language for his post-people). The author of Black Oceans writes multi-layered texts, which are snapped up both by people who simply love a good story, and by readers who would like to delve into the writer’s anthropological and philosophical concepts.

Idoia Iribertegui

Invitado de Honor

(Pamplona, 1973) studied Fine Arts and has been working as a professional illustrator since 2003. Her work is mainly focused on the publishing sector, illustrating her own texts and those of other authors. She has published 10 books, some of which have been translated into other languages such as Polish and Korean. Some highlights of her work would include the Lolita butterfly collection of books (Glenat, Ediciones B, 2009-2015), based on the character created by Idoia herself, her graphic novel Olivia y el sexo (Grijalbo, 2019), Regla  N.1 (Bromera, 2021) and most recently Desdichas de una familia Victoriana (Triqueta verde,  2022). 
Her last book won the illustrators exhibition award at the 2023 Bologna children’s book fair.  Her work has been seen in exhibitions in Spain, the UK, Italy and South Korea.

Frank Westerman

Invitado de Honor

(1964) Frank is a Dutch writer and former journalist living in Amsterdam. He studied tropical agriculture at Wageningen University, lived for a year in Peru among the Aymara-indians of the Andes and worked as a newspaper correspondent in Belgrade during violent the break-up of Yugoslavia and afterwards in Moscow where he witnessed how Vladimir Putin came to power. Frank is currently a full-time writer of literary non-fiction books, among which are Engineers of the Soul (2002), Ararat (2007), Brother Mendel’s Perfect Horse (2011), Choke Valley (2013), We Hominids (2018) and The Cosmic Comedy (2021). With over sixty translations in fifteen languages his work is reaching an international audience.

Other activities involving the participant:

Bridges between cultures: diplomatic writers, writers diplomats

Claudia Neira Bermúdez

(1975). Directora del Festival Centroamérica Cuenta desde 2015, donde también coordina la curaduría de contenidos. Combina su labor de gestión cultural con su experiencia en comunicación estratégica y relaciones públicas. 
Previamente, trabajó como editora en medios de comunicación en Nicaragua, como experta de comunicación en Estados Unidos y Nicaragua donde fundó en 2005 Crea Comunicaciones. Posee un Master en comunicación estratégica y Relaciones Públicas en la Universidad de Marshall, West Virginia, Estados Unidos. Es fellow de la V clase de la Iniciativa de Liderazgo Centroamericana (CALI, por sus siglas en inglés, asociada al Aspen Institute). Ha sido mentora en Voces Vitales y formado parte de diversas iniciativas culturales, empresariales y de liderazgo en Centroamérica. 

Nicaragüense nacida en Brasil de padre peruano y madre nicaragüense. Desde el 2022, reside en Madrid.

Other activities involving the participant:

The Pleasure of Reading Galas
Latin America Viva

Lídia Jorge

Invitado de Honor

(Boliqueime, Portugal, 1946) debutó con la publicación de O Dia dos Prodígios en 1980, uno de los libros más emblemáticos de la literatura portuguesa posrevolucionaria. Desde entonces ha publicado diversos títulos en el ámbito de la novela, el cuento, el ensayo y el teatro. En 1988, La costa de los murmullos le abrió las puertas al reconocimiento internacional, y más tarde fue adaptada al cine por Margarida Cardoso. Entre otras muchas obras, se destacan El fujitivo que dibujava  pájaros, O Vento assobiando nas Gruas, Combateremos a Sombra y Los memorables, poderosas metáforas de la evolución posrevolucionaria y del arduo camino hacia la democracia.
Sus libros han sido galardonados con los principales premios nacionales, algunos de ellos por el conjunto de la obra, como el Premio Latinidad, el Gran Premio de la Sociedad Portuguesa de Autores o, más recientemente, el Premio Vergílio Ferreira en 2015. Este año ha sido distinguida con el Premio Vida Literaria de la Asociación Portuguesa de Escritores.
Entre otros premios que le han sido otorgados en el extranjero, la escritora fue premiada en 2006 en la primera edición del prestigioso Premio Albatros de la Fundación Günter Grass y, en 2015, en el Gran Premio Luso-Español de Cultura. En 2020 recibió el Premio FIL de Literatura.
 

Olja Savicevic

Invitado de Honor

Olja Savičević (Split, 1974) is one of the best Croatian contemporary authors and a representative of the so-called ‘lost generation’. She graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science in Zadar. Her first poetry collection was published when she was 14 years old, and since then, she published twelve works: six poetry collections, a short story collection, two novels and three picture books. Politically and socially engaged, Olja’s work has been included in a number of Croatian anthologies and international selections. Her writing has been translated into 11 languages: German, English, Spanish, Italian, Bulgarian, Dutch, Swedish, Macedonian, Slovenian, Hungarian and French, with excerpts of her prose and poetry translated and published into over 30 langagues world-wide. For her works, Olja received a number of coveted national, regional and international awards. In 2020, her novel Farewell, Cowboy was awarded the French award Prix du premiere for the best debut novel translated in French. Farewell, Cowboy was wonderfully received by readers as well: a great success in the region, the book was adapted into a stage play. Her second novel, Singer in the Night, received the British Pen Award. Her short stories collection To Make a Dog Laugh won the prize for best author under thirty-five awarded jointly by Vijenac. The poetry collection Mamasafari and Other Things was short-listed for the ‘Kiklop Award for Best Collection of 2012’, awarded annually by the Pula Book Fair.

Other activities involving the participant:

The Poetry Room

Angelo Tijssens

Invitado de Honor

(1986) Is a scriptwriter, theatremaker, actor, and writer. He co-wrote the films Girl (Caméra d’Or, Cannes 2018) and Close (Grand Prix, Cannes 2022), amongst others. He also travels the world as a stage actor and theatre maker with the ‘Ontroerend Goed’ collective. His semiautobiographical debut novel The Edges harnesses vulnerable emotions to reflect on growing up in an environment that’s not fit for purpose, that’s ‘on the edge’.

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

Nina Yargekov

Invitado de Honor

Nacida en 1980, es una escritora franco-húngara. Autora de las novelas Tuer Catherine (2009), Vous serez mes témoins (2011) y Double nationalité (2016, Prix de Flore), las tres publicadas por la prestigiosa editorial Pol; se queja regularmente de que sólo tiene una vida, lo que le parece decididamente incompatible con la posibilidad de llevar a cabo el medio millar de proyectos literarios que tiene en mente. Por lo demás, es doctora en sociología, trabaja como traductora-intérprete y a veces da clases en la universidad.

Yara Nakahanda Monteiro

Invitado de Honor

(Angola, 1979) es una escritora luso-angoleña cuya obra gira en torno a las experiencias afrodiaspóricas y femeninas.
Su primera novela, Essa dama bate bué!, (Lisboa; Guerra e Paz Editores, 2018) fue nominada al Premio Literario de Dublín 2023, está traducida a varios idiomas y se estudia en universidades de todo el mundo. Dicha obra se publicó en México en 2023 (Editorial Elefanta). Memórias Aparições Arritmias (Lisboa, Companhia das Letras, 2021) ganó el Premio Literario Glória de Sant'Anna al mejor libro de poesía en 2022. Los cuentos, ensayos y poesías de esta autora están disponibles en diversas publicaciones. Es, asimismo, coautora del guion de las películas Caminho para as estrelas (2022) y A Ilha (2022).
Es licenciada en gestión de recursos humanos,  y ha ocupado varios puestos de responsabilidad en empresas multinacionales. Durante cinco años, también fue empresaria en una consultoría de RRHH. Estudió guion y arte contemporáneo. Actualmente reside en Portugal.

Gian Marco Griffi

Invitado de Honor

“Gian Marco Griffi nació por circunstancias ajenas a su voluntad en Alessandria, el 16 de diciembre de 1976. Vive desde hace unos 31 años en un pueblo llamado Montemagno”. Así comienza la descripción que el autor de Ferrovie del Messico (Laurana Editore, 2022) -el fulgurante e inesperado éxito de más de 800 páginas y más de diez reimpresiones en menos de un año- se dedica a sí mismo desde las páginas del blog que creó para Più segreti degli angeli sono i suicidi (Bookabook, 2017), su debut literario que adopta como título un evocador verso de Milo de Angelis, poeta, escritor y crítico literario italiano. Desde su infancia, pasada jugando en el estanco de su abuelo, hasta su actual gestión del club de golf Margara de Fubine (en la provincia de Alessandria), pasando por su traslado a Asti, “una ciudad que no cambiaría por ninguna otra del mundo”, la biografía de Griffi se enriquece ahora con nuevos hitos editoriales. Una segunda publicación, la colección de relatos Inciampi (Arkadia, 2019), en la que se mezclan emociones, reflexiones, situaciones paradójicas o absolutamente cotidianas, y el paulatino y creciente interés por la historia de Francesco Cesco Magetti, un soldado de la Guardia Nacional Republicana de Ferrocarriles al que el führer encarga dibujar un mapa de las vías férreas de México porque es allí donde, según los nazis, se esconde 'un arma diabólica y terrorífica'. Ganador de numerosos premios, Libro del Año de Fahrenheit, con esta primera novela, objeto del boca a boca entre lectores entusiastas y libreros apasionados, el autor entró en la selección del Premio Strega otorgado por el historiador Alessandro Barbero, que al nominarlo consideró “extremadamente meritorias la novedad, y la ambición, del concepto y de la trama, así como la calidad de la escritura”: la novela está escrita en un lenguaje versátil y cambiante, a menudo aparentemente oral, pero en realidad letrado, que recurre a todos los recursos del italiano, de los modismos regionales, de los lenguajes especializados, e incluso de las jergas bribonas y fantásticas".
 

Alfonso Zapico

Invitado de Honor

Was born in Blimea (Asturias) in 1981. He studied Plastic Arts and Design at the  Oviedo School of Art. He worked as a freelancer for advertising agencies and institutions and  produced illustrations aimed at children and young people for various publishing houses. In  2005 he collaborated on several educational projects for the region of Asturias. He has also  drawn comic strips and cartoons for newspapers and magazines in Asturias such as La Nueva  España. In 2006, he published his first comic album in France, entitled Profesor Bertenev's  War", which won an award at the FestiBD Ville de Moulins. He has produced several graphic  novels and has also taken part in a range of publications and collective works. He moved to  France where he is at work on several comic projects for the Maison des Auteurs in  Angoulême. In 2012, he won the National Comic Award 2012 for his graphic novel James Joyce:  Portrait of a Dubliner, based on the life of the writer James Joyce. In The Ballad of the North,  he depicts in four parts his home region, Asturias in northern Spain, during the dramatic years  before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Zapico has recreated environments and  moods from his home region, where the mining industry until recently dominated.

Julián Herbert

(Acapulco, México, 1971) Es autor de los libros de poemas El nombre de esta casa, La resistencia, Kubla Khan, Pastilla camaleón y Álbum Iscariote; de las novelas Un mundo infiel y Canción de tumba; de la crónica histórica novelada La casa del dolor ajeno; de los libros de cuentos Cocaína (manual del usuario) y Tráiganme la cabeza de Quentin Tarantino; y del libro de crónicas Ahora imagino cosas, entre otras obras. Obtuvo el Premio Nacional de Literatura Gilberto Owen, el Premio Nacional de Cuento Juan José Arreola, el Premio Nacional de Cuento Agustín Yáñez, el Premio Jaén de Novela, el Premio Iberoamericano de novela Elena Poniatowska, el MacGinnis Ritchie Award, la beca Borchard Foundation y el Premio Nacional de Poesía Ramón López Velarde. Algunos de sus libros están traducidos al inglés, francés, portugués, italiano, alemán y turco. Escribe para medios audiovisuales, es miembro del Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte y es vocalista del grupo de rock Los Tigres de Borges.

Other activities involving the participant:

¡Al ruedo! Eight Mexican talents
Catharsis between books and letters

Pascal Quignard

Invitado de Honor

Pascal Quignard was born in Verneuil-sur-Avre, Eure, in 1948 and lives in Paris. He is considered one of the greatest contemporary French writers. He is the author of more than 70 books, including the novels Le salon du Wurtemberg (1986), Tous les matins du monde (1991, adapted to the cinema by Alain Courneau), Terrasse à Rome (2000, Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française), Villa Amalia (2006, Grand prix Jean Giono), Les Ombres errantes (2002, Prix Goncourt), Les solidarités mystérieuses (2011), Les larmes (2016) and L'amour la mer (2022). He has also written numerous essays in which fiction is mixed with reflection, such as the Petits traités, and the volumes of Dernier royaume. For his entire works, Pascal Quignard was awarded in 2019 the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize and in 2023 the Prix de la Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Premio Formentor.

For his contribution to the influence of arts and letters in France and around the world, Pascal Quignard has received the highest French honours: in 1995 he was made « chevalier » (« knight »), puis en 2012 « officier » (« officer) of the Legion of Honor, and in 2016 « commandeur » (« commander ») of the Order of Arts and Letters. 

Other activities involving the participant:

Master Conference

Jurga Vilė

Invitado de Honor

Jurga Vilė was born in 1977 in Vilnius, Lithuania. She earned a bachelor’s degree in French philology at the University of Vilnius and studied film science and audiovisual media at the University of Sorbonne III in Paris. Vilė worked as a script supervisor for various film productions, as coordinator and responsible for translations at film festivals and as a freelance journalist for cultural magazines. She has been working as a translator for more than twenty years.
In 2017 Jurga Vilė wrote her first graphic novel Sibiro Haiku (tr: Siberian Haiku, published by Aukso žuvys, illustrated by Lina Itagaki), which won important awards and was translated into more than ten languages. In 2019 her second book Švelnumo fabrikėlis (tr: In the Velvet Forest, published by: You&Oil, illustrated by Lina Zigmantė) was published. In 2021 two illustration albums from a new series A drop in the sea saw the day: Chameleono sapnai (tr: Dreams of a Chameleon, published by Tikra knyga, illustrated by Lina Sasnauskaitė) and Pulpas ir jo žalia koja (tr: Pulpo and its green leg, published by Tikra knyga, illustrated by Akvilė Magicdust). In 2022 her newest book, a cinematographic piece, was published: Nukritę iš Mėnulio. Sapnas apie Oskarą Milašių ir kitus paukščius (tr: Fallen from the Moon. A Dream about Oscar Milosz and Other Birds, published by Aukso žuvys, illustrated by Ula Rugevičiutė Rugytė), also an audio book “The Black Hand” (audioteka.lt). Today Jurga Vilė continues writing and working on various educational projects.  

Nikos Bakounakis

Invitado de Honor

Nikos is a Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Storytelling Techniques 
in the Department of Communication, Media and Culture at Panteion University, where 
he has taught since 2003. He is a graduate of the Department of Law of the University of 
Athens and an élève diplômé of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)  in Paris. He holds a PhD in History and Civilizations from EHESS. In 1997, he created the  “Books” supplement of the newspaper Vima tis Kyriakis, the first literary supplement in the Greek Press, which remained in circulation until 2018. He collaborates with the  newspaper lifo, for which he writes and presents the podcast “Books and Authors”. He is  an Officier de l’ Ordre des Palmes Académiques of the French Republic. He is the author of numerous books, among which A moment of Europe in 19th-century Greece: The words, the image and the legend of Andreas Rigopoulos that won the Academy of Athens Award  in 2008, and Journalist or reporter: Narrative in Greek newspapers of the 19th & 20th century (in Greek) that won both the National Award for Testimony-Biography-Chronicle Travel Literature and the Academy of Athens Award in 2016.

Jean Portante

Invitado de Honor

Jean Portante was born in 1950 in Differdange (Luxembourg), of Italian parents. He lives in Paris. His work, spanning some forty books - poetry, novels, essays and plays - is widely translated and has been published in 25 countries. In France, he is a member of the Académie Mallarmé. In Luxembourg, he is a member of the Institut Grand-ducal. In 2003, Jean Portante was awarded the Prix Mallarmé in France for his book L'étrange langue. Ten years earlier, his novel Mrs Haroy ou la mémoire de la baleine had won the Prix Servais for best book of the year in Luxembourg. He has received the prize a second time in 2016, for his novel L'architecture des temps instables. In 2011, he was awarded the Prix national Batty Weber in Luxembourg for his body of work. He has won many other literary prizes in Luxembourg, France and Italy such as the Concours littéraire national in Luxembourg in 1986, 1990 and 1992, the Prix Tony Bourg in 1993, Prix de poésie Louis Montalte de la Société des Gens de Lettres (Paris) in 2003, Prix International de littérature francophone Benjamin Fondane in 2012, the Prix Pétrarque (Cénacle européen francophone) in 2014, the Printemps Poétique transfrontalier in 2017, as well as the Premio di Poesia « Città di Pescara – Sinestectica » in 2019. For more than thirty years Jean Portante has also been active as a translator, focusing especially, but not exclusively, on Spanish- and Italian-speaking poets. 

Recent publications : 
Le pain n’est pas encore pétri, Éditions caractères, France, 2023.
Tout battement est secret / Poésie de Cuba 1959-2022, translated by Jean Portante, Éditions caractères, France, 2023.
Une dernière fois, la Méditerranée. Roman, Éditions Phi, Luxembourg, 2022.
Œuvres poétiques. Tome 1 : Le travail de l’origine (1986-2004), La Rumeur libre, France, 2022.
Jadis je disait. Poésie, Éditions Phi, Luxembourg, 2021.

Jáchym Topol

Invitado de Honor

(1962, Prague) is a Czech novelist, poet and journalist. His first poetry, short stories and articles were published as samizdat. He went to grammar school but for political reasons was unable to continue his studies at university and therefore during the 1980s he undertook various manual jobs. During this time, he was engaged in many activities including the publishing of the samizdat magazine Revolver Revue. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he worked as the editor of Respekt magazine and as a reporter for Lidové noviny. Since the 1990s and his first collections of poetry Topol has been focusing mainly on literary fiction, his debut in this genre being the novel City Sister Silver / Sestra (Catbird Press, 2001) reflecting a time of great social upheaval. In his peculiarly tongue-in-cheek texts like Nightwork / Noční práce (2001), Gargling with Tar / Kloktat dehet (2005) and The Devil's Workshop / Chladnou zemí (2009) he often combines current social themes with taboo yet crucial moments of Czech contemporary history. For his latest novel A Sensitive Person / Citlivý člověk (Yale University Press, 2023) Topol received the Czech State Award for Literature. Some of his novels have been turned into films and he is one of the most translated contemporary Czech authors. Since 2011 he has worked as a dramaturg at the Václav Havel Library. He lives in Prague and has three children.

Karolina Ramqvist

Invitado de Honor

Karolina Ramqvist was born in 1976 in Gothenburg but raised in Stockholm, where she still lives with her family. She is one of the most influential writers and feminists of her generation in Sweden.
Ramqvist has written five novels to date and had her breakthrough in 2009 with the critically
acclaimed book The Girlfriend, which has also been adapted for the stage. Her 2012
generational coming-of-age-novel The Beginning rocketed into instant cult status and placed Ramqvist in the national spotlight as a powerful literary voice with the ability to provoke quiet yet fierce questions rather than provide loud and easy answers. In her skillful hands, contemporary issues of sexuality, commercialization, isolation and belonging become highly charged and, at the same time, completely unaffected. Her style is at once stripped down and lyrical, suspenseful yet meditative.
In 2014, Ramqvist made her screenwriting debut with the award-winning short film Cupcake.
In 2015, she published the greatly anticipated novel, The White City, which was praised by
critics and was awarded the prestigious P.O. Enquist Literary Prize and gave her a unique and strong position in contemporary Swedish literature. In 2019, The Bear Woman was published to great critical acclaim and was also published in a number of countries around the world.
Ramqvist latest book, the memoir Bread and Milk, was published in March, 2022. It centers
around how what we eat is inexorably intertwined with how we love. Bread and Milk is at once wholly original and a natural extension of the brazenly intelligent and personal writing that has come to define Karolina Ramqvist’s authorship.
In May 2022, The Literary Stockholm-initiative awarded Karolina Ramqvist an honorary plaque in recognition of her literary contributions to the city, and as a way of promoting reading and inspiring thought. Karolina Ramqvist’s plaque holds a quote from her novel The Beginning and can be seen in Kungsträdgården in central Stockholm.

Jana Benová

Invitado de Honor

Jana Beňová was born in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1974. Her novel, Café Hyena (Plán
odprevádzania) won the 2012 European Union Prize for Literature. Thus far, it has been translated into 14 languages. She is also the author of three books of poetry, three other novels, and two collections of short stories.
Her most recent books include Flaners shirt (8 and ½ Streets of Bratislava), which is a combination of essays and reportage dedicated to the city of Bratislava and its people. 
In 2022 she published a collection of short stories entitled Vandala, which is inspired by the structure of a mandala, while the main theme which connects most of the stories is “emotional vandalism”. The book Interviews in The Park includes interviews Benova made for the art magazine Park in late 90-ties and the twin interviews she added recently after 25 years with the same well known personalities of the art and cultural scene of Slovakia. The intention was to capture through the changes in personal and professional life the changes of the society as such.
Beňová has worked as a journalist for several years and is currently publishing in the independent newspaper “N” in Bratislava.  In the past, she worked as an editor in the publishing sector at the Theatre Institute in Bratislava, as well.
She had single lectures about literature and writing at the Charles University in Prague, University Bologna and University of Vienna.

Witold Szablowski

Invitado de Honor

(born 1980) - journalist, one of the most respected Polish reporters.
Author of the books Zabójca z miasta moreli. Reportaże z Turcji (The Assassin from Apricot City: Reportage from Turkey, 2010), Tańczące niedźwiedzie. Reportaże z transformacji (Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny, 2014), and Sprawiedliwi zdrajcy. Sąsiedzi z Wołynia (Righteous Traitors: Neighbours from Volhynia, 2016), which have gained recognition in Poland and worldwide. A winner of the European Parliament Journalism Prize, the Anna Lindh Award, and the Ryszard Kapuściński Award of the Polish Press Agency.
He was nominated for the Nike Literary Award for his book The Assassin from Apricot City. In 2008, he received an honourable mention in the Amnesty International competition for the best human rights journalism for his article To z miłości, siostro (It’s out of Love, Sister). The writer also signed a contract with one of the most prestigious publishing houses in the world - Penguin Random House. Dancing Bears translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones has been published by this publishing house. Recently, his book Jak nakarmić dyktatora (How to Feed a Dictator) has also appeared on the English-speaking market.

Books:
Zabójca z miasta moreli, Czarne, Wołowiec 2010
Nasz mały PLR. Pół roku w M-3 z trwałą, wąsami i maluchem (z Izabelą Meyzą), Znak, Cracow 2012
Tańczące niedźwiedzie, Wydawnictwo Agora, Warsaw 2014
Sprawiedliwi zdrajcy. Sąsiedzi z Wołynia, Znak, Cracow 2016
Jak nakarmić dyktatora, W.A.B., Warsaw 2019 

Other activities involving the participant:

Contemporary crises seen by the authors