(Nijmegen, NL, 1960) writes essays, short stories and plays, and is a columnist with the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad. He published the novels Laatste woorden (Last words) and Suez and received the Henriëtte Roland Holst Prize in 2005. In 2011's Moeten wij van elkaar houden, het populisme ontleed (Do We Have to Love One Another? Populism Dissected) Heijne shows how globalisation and individualism pave the way for populism. Angst en schoonheid (Fear and Beauty) was published in 2013, an essay about Dutch writer Louis Couperus, whom Heijne admires. In the same year his documentary about Couperus was broadcast. In 2015 he hosted the five-part documentary De volmaakte mens (The Perfect Human). In 2016 his essay Onbehagen – nieuw licht op de beschaafde mens (Discontent - new light on civilized man) was published. In 2017 Heijne received the P.C. Hooft Award for his essayistic works.

(Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia, 1968) is a Malaysian writer, poet, actor, photographer and filmmaker. She graduated with a B.Ed in English Literature and TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) from the University of Winnipeg, Canada, and has worked extensively in the arts for over 20 years. Of Chinese and Punjabi parentage, her work stems from the desire to tell stories, and she has worked with marginalised communities from sex workers and refugees to indigenous peoples, in mediums that incorporate film, photography and prose. She has published two collections of poetry, going there and coming back (1997), The Book of Sins (2008), a collection of short stories, Lost in KL (2008) and a critically-acclaimed memoir Growing Up With Ghosts (2011), an exploration of grief, personal and political history, and bloodlines. She works in both Bahasa Malaysia and English, and her work has been exhibited, screened, published locally and internationally. She is also the founder of Readings and CeritAku, two live literary platforms in Kuala Lumpur, now in its eighth year. She lives in Kuala Lumpur with her two daughters and she keeps a blog of her work at bernicechauly.wordpress.com.

(Libanon, 1956) broke through internationally in 2004 with her debut novel B as in Beirut. The story is told by four different women, who have to learn to cope with the consequences of the civil war. The most penetrating is the story of Warda, who goes crazy with grief and guilt-feelings because her father dies in a bomb attack and she loses her little daughter on top of that. In her second book Wild Mulberries (2008) Iman Humaydan describes life in a small Lebanese village in the 1930s. The main character Sarah is a young girl dreaming of a better future and a meeting with her mother, who fled the village and its patriarchal rules when Sarah was small. Iman Humaydan likewise grew up in a small Lebanese village, but in a tolerant family. Her third novel Hayawat Okhra (Other Lives) came out in 2010. It recounts the life of a woman coming back home after so many years of exile to rediscover her city and past. Hayawat Okhra will be published in English and French by the end of 2011. She studied sociology in Beirut and works as a researcher, journalist, and in launching and implementing development projects in Lebanese rural areas.

(Somalia, 1967) fled her native country and settled in the Netherlands in 1987. First she wanted to become an actress, but now she has made a name for herself as a writer. In her novel Een nagelaten verhaal (A Bequeathed Story (2009), she describes a young woman who, invited by a documentary film maker, returns to her motherland for the first time after 23 years. It turns out to be an emotional journey, as she discovers that the country has been ruined, and little is left of her past. Yasmine Allas has been involved in the public debate in the Netherlands. Her book Ontheemd en toch thuis (Homeless Yet Home, 2006) is a collection of essays on life in the multicultural Netherlands, published in the Volkskrant. She calls a spade a spade and often touches sour spots. To her, religious fanaticism is a divisive element in society and must be battled. Social wrongs have played a role in her work from her debut, Idil, een meisje (Idil, a Girl, 1998), in which she describes the troubled life of a Somali girl and exposes the circumcision of women.

(Aruba) is a librarian. He finished his library and documentation studies in The Netherlands in 1975. After returning to Aruba, he worked for the National Library of Aruba, and was a teacher and a course leader for library and archive studies. He was co-founder and chairman of the Fundacion Arubano pa Lectura Papia y Adapta (Aruban Foundation for spoken and adapted reading material).

(Aruba 1960) lived and studied 7 years in the USA where she obtained a Doctor’s degree in pharmacy. She then returned to live and work in Aruba. She has followed classes in visual art, writing and music since childhood. From 1989 till 1993 she followed workshops at “Ateliers 89” given by well-known artists from the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. She now works on her artworks in her Atelier at her house.
Belinda typically combines her visual arts - painting, installations – with writings. Usually short poems in her native language Papiamento. She has often said that in her art “it is not about the painting, it’s about the writing”.

was cradled in creativity as daughter of Aruban author Nydia Ecury. She is a creative writer and translator, performing poet, story teller, international multilingual voice-artist, photographer, illustrator and graphic designer. Battling autism and an eye-muscle disability that impedes reading, she developed into a pragmatic autodidact, absorbing text by 'content-scanning” and creating her own structured tutoring. Her first poem was born at age four and she shares her passion of word through multilingual works and communication for commercial and social work groups. Caresse wrote and directed multidisciplinary plays like 'Sirena', 'Transparencia' Silence of Soul', 'Hende cu Hende’, 'Formando Nos' and 'Volcan' and creates 'SoulPaintings'; visual-affirmation-portraits to help unleash creative powers of her subjects. She attributes her love of freedom to her Haitian descent and derives her inspiration from the Divine to which she attributes her creative talents. While not adhering to religion, she wrote her favorite poem 'Obada' dedicated to God, later the song 'Scochi' on her first CD. Caresse was commissioned to present her poetry volume 'Chang’é' as national gift to retiring Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mr. Balkenende and founded United Artists of Aruba and United Artists of Curacao as publisher and marketing support to fellow artists.

(1971) was born in San Nicolas, Aruba. After completing secondary education in Groningen he left for Port-au-Prince where he worked as an English teacher at the Université Adventiste d’ Haïti. After returning to Europe he studied law in Maastricht and London. The next step of the journey was Groningen where he did research and taught constititutional law. Since 2002 he lectures at the University of Aruba. It was during his stay in London that Meritocracy was written in which one aspect of the great phenomenon called ‘LIFE’ was unfolded. During the course of the past years more aspects were examined such as the pursuit of happiness, envy and love. In 2009 Caresse Isings & Luciano Milliard will publish their first joint collection of poems. This is a concerted endeavor to reach the hearts of all living souls.