Javier Cercas

Invitado de Honor

Javier Cercas is a Lecturer in Spanish Literature at the University of Girona, an honorary fellow of the University of Oxford and honorary lecturer at Diego Portales University in Chile. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. His novels include The Motive, The Tenant, El vientre de la ballena (The Belly of the Whale), Soldiers of Salamis (The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Grinzane-Cavour Prize, Chilean Critics Prize, City of Barcelona Prize, Llibreter Prize, Salambó Prize, among others), The Speed of Light (Athens Prize for Literature, Archbishop Juan de San Clemente Prize, Fernando Lara Prize, ex aequo), The Anatomy of a Moment (National Narrative Prize, Terenci Moix International Prize, Mondello Città di Palermo Prize, Prix Jean Monnet, Radovan Galonja Prize), Outlaws (Prix Méditerranée Étranger, Correntes d’Escritas Prize, Mandarache Prize), The Impostor (Prix du Livre Européen, Isola d’Elba International Prize, Ceppo di Pistoia International Prize, Archbishop Juan de San Clemente Prize, Taofen Prize for Best Foreign Novel Published in China), Lord of All the Dead (Prix Malraux), Even the Darkest Night: Terra Alta I (Planeta Prize and Dagger Prize), Independence (Terra Alta II) and El castillo de Barbazul (Terra Alta III) (Bluebeard’s Castle [Terra Alta III]) (NordSud International Prize). He has also published several miscellaneous works – Una buena temporada (A Good Season), Relatos reales (Real Tales), La verdad de Agamenón (The Truth of Agamemnon), Formas de ocultarse (Ways of Hiding), No callar (Not Keeping Silent) and La aventura de escribir (The Adventure of Writing), as well as essays such as La obra literaria de Gonzalo Suárez (The Literary Work of Gonzalo Suárez) and El punto ciego (The Blind Spot).

Other activities involving the participant:

Talk
The privilege of turning off the light

Natalka Sniadanko

(Ukraine, 1973)

She is a writer, translator and cultural journalist born in Lviv, Ukraine. Since 2001, she has published nine books, including seven novels translated into eleven languages. Her best-known work includes The Passion Collection and Frau Müller Does not Wish To Pay More. With an ironic and feminist writing voice, Sniadanko explores themes of identity, freedom and the female experience in Eastern Europe. She has been awarded the Joseph Conrad Prize and the Translation Prize of the Austrian Ministry of Education, Art and Culture for her version of The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek. She was also a finalist for the Angelus Literary Award. Her career combines literary work with social criticism, and active participation in the European cultural dialogue.

Other activities involving the participant:

Experience, narrative, and resilience
Echoes of FIL

Lucia Duero

(Slovakia, 1988) 

Writer, poet and literary translator. She studied creative writing at the Josef Škvorecký Academy in Prague, Czech Republic and at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, and graduated with a Master of arts degree at Linköping University in Sweden. 
Her texts have been published in various newspapers and magazines in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Spain, the United States and Latin America. 

El Problema principal, published in Spain in 2018, is her first book, originally written in Spanish. Her most recent book, Esplendor de no ser, was published in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in April 2025, and in New York in Anayvelyse Allen-Mossman's translation as Brilliance of Unbeing, in a bilingual version. 

She is the author of 20 translations, including Anne Carson, Aimé Césaire, Alejandra Pizarnik, Cristina Peri Rossi, Luljeta Lleshanaku, Amparo Dávila, José Emilio Pacheco, Josefina Vicens et al. into Slovak, and from the work of Slovak poets Ivan Štrpka, Michal Habaj, Katarína Kucbelová and Mária Ferenčuhová into Spanish.
 
She got several scholarships and participated in numerous artistic residencies, for example, Looren Translation House in Looren, Switzerland; Hispanic Literary Translation Center, in Tarazona, Spain; The European Translators College, in Straelen, Germany; the International Center of Writers and Translators, in Rhodes, Greece, and Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, in Banff, Canada. She is a recipient of the II. Marcelo Reyes Award for Translation (2017). She has been living in Mexico City since 2012.

Valentijn Hoogenkamp

(Países Bajos, 1986)

Artista multidisciplinar holandés que combina la escritura y las bellas artes para explorar cuestiones de identidad e intimidad. Tras escribir diez obras de teatro e interpretar poesía en escenarios nacionales e internacionales, escribió su primera novela Adoring Louis Claus, en 2021. Esta novela fue elogiada en la prensa nacional, nominada al Premio Anton Wachter y publicada en Alemania por Atlantik. Su ensayo de no ficción Antiboy, un coming-of-gender sobre su transición de género, se publicó en 2022 y actualmente está siendo traducido por Michele Hutchinson, ganadora del Premio Booker. Antiboy será lanzado internacionalmente por Seagull Press en el Reino Unido, Estados Unidos e India y por SKUC en Eslovenia en 2024.
 

Other activities involving the participant:

Echoes of FIL

Antje Rávik Strubel

(Germany, 1974)

Writer and translator. She grew up in East Germany, and her early works analyze the dissonances and conflicts that resulted from German reunification, especially the damages caused by ideologies and by the long shadow cast by dictatorial systems. Her later novels deal with borderline experiences, both in the social and personal environment, the question of what we consider normal, love, sex and power relations, the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion and the pressure exerted by social norms.
Her publications include the novels Unter Schnee (Snowed Under, 2001), Fremd Gehen. Ein Nachtstück (2002) (Going Strange , 2002), Tupolew 134 (2004), as well as Sturz der Tage in die Nacht (When Days Plunge into Night, 2011). Her work has earned her numerous awards, her novel Kältere Schichten der Luft (Colder Layers of Air, 2007) was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize and received the Rheingau Literature Prize and the Hermann Hesse Prize. In 2019 she was awarded the Prize of the Houses of Literature. Her novel Blaue Frau (Blue Woman) was awarded the 2021 German Book Prize. Strubel has written numerous essays on socio-political and literary topics, published in the volumes Es hört nie auf, dass man etwas sagen muss (It's Impossible to Stop Saying Something, 2022) and nah genug weit weg (close enough very far away, 2023). She is also the author of travel essays about Sweden and her native region, Brandenburg. 
In March 2025 her new novel was published, Der Einfluss der Fasane (The Influence of the Pheasants) and in the autumn an essay on skiing, writing and death with the title Kein Schnee, nimmermehr (Snow, Never Again). She has translated from English and Swedish, among others, Joan Didion, Monika Fagerholm, Lucia Berlin and Virginia Woolf. 

Other activities involving the participant:

Echoes of FIL

Bruno Vieira Amaral

(Portugal, 1978)
Collaborator in the magazine Ler, the newspaper Expresso and Rádio Observador. He made his debut with the essay Guia para 50 Personagens da Ficção Portuguesa in 2013, published by Guerra e Paz. His first novel, As Primeiras Coisas (Quetzal, 2013), was awarded the PEN Clube Narrative Prize, the Fernando Namora Literary Prize, the Time Out and the José Saramago Literary Award in 2015. In 2016 he was selected as one of the Ten New Voices from Europe, by the platform Literature Across Frontiers.
His second novel, Hoje Estarás Comigo no Paraíso (Quetzal, 2017), received the 2016-2017 Tabula Rasa Prize in the fiction category, and took second place in the 2018 Oceans Prize. In 2018 his best scattered texts were gathered, in the volume Manobras de Guerrilha, and in 2020 he published the book of short stories Uma Ida ao Motel, awarded the following year with the Camilo Castelo Branco /APE Short Story Grand Prize. In 2021 he published Marginal Integrated, biography of the writer José Cardoso Pires. A year later, he met in O Segundo Coração a series of chronicles about the past and memory. In 2024 he published his third novel, Toda a Gente Tem um Plan . The rights to his books have been sold to several countries, including Spain, Italy, Brazil, Hungary, Egypt and Israel.

Other activities involving the participant:

The Pleasure of Reading Gala

Jan Carson

(Ireland)

Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two microfiction collections. Her novel, The Fire Starters  won the European Literature Prize for Ireland, in 2019. Her most recent novel, The Raptures, was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year awards. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday (UK) in April 2024, and by Scribner (USA) in July 2024. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and RTE. She is a 2025 Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen's University Belfast, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first play, an adaptation of the children's classic The Velveteen Rabbit, was produced by the Replay theatre company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in March 2025. Her next novel is Few and Far Between, which is to be published in early 2026.

Other activities involving the participant:

Annual International Storytellers Conference
Echoes of FIL

Sofia Chanfreau

Sofia Chanfreau (1986) y Amanda Chanfreau (1983) nacieron en Helsinki (Finlandia), crecieron en Åland (una isla finlandesa en el Báltico) y ahora viven en Malmö (Suecia). La autora del texto, Sofia Chanfreau, es productora musical, técnica de sonido y escritora. Estudió música y escritura creativa en Suecia y en Los Ángeles. La ilustradora, Amanda Chanfreau, es artista visual, tatuadora e ilustradora de libros infantiles.

Donatella Di Pietrantonio

(Italia, 1962)

Donatella Di Pietrantonio es una de las voces más potentes y conmovedoras de la narrativa italiana contemporánea. Nacida en Arsita, un pequeño pueblo de montaña en los Abruzos, ha sabido transformar su tierra natal en un escenario literario lleno de emociones crudas y relaciones familiares complejas. Debutó en 2011 con Mi madre es un río (Duomo ediciones, 2023), una novela que explora el vínculo entre una madre con Alzheimer y su hija. Este libro fue galardonado con el Premio Tropea. En 2017, alcanzó el reconocimiento internacional con La Retornada (Duomo ediciones, 2018), la historia de una adolescente devuelta a su familia biológica tras años con padres adoptivos. Este libro ganó el Premio Campiello y fue traducido a más de 30 idiomas. En 2023, publicó La edad frágil, una novela que aborda temas como la violencia de género y la fragilidad emocional durante la pandemia. Este libro le valió el Premio Strega y el Premio Strega Giovani en 2024. 
Di Pietrantonio escribe desde el temblor: el de la infancia arrebatada, el del amor que no cuida, el del territorio que nos forma y nos fractura. En La edad frágil (Duomo Ediciones, 2025), su más reciente libro, aborda temas como las siempre complejas relaciones entre madres e hijas, la violencia de género y la fragilidad emocional durante la pandemia.