was born in Nigeria. He worked as a lecturer and journalist in Nigeria before he moved to England to become the African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. In 2002 he published his first novel, Waiting for an Angel. His writing has won many prizes including the Caine Prize, 2001, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2003. In 2005/2006 he became the Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College, New York.
In 2006 he co-edited the British Council's anthology, New Writing 14. His second novel, Measuring Time, was published in 2007, it won the Virginia Library Foundation Fiction Award, 2008. His third novel, Oil on Water, was published in the US in 2011. His anthology, The Granta Book of the African Short Story came out in September, 2011. Habila teaches Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and three children.

(Great Britain, 1974) grew up in Ghana. During his studies in Manchester he joined Commonword, a group of visible-minority writers who discuss one another's work. He writes prose, poetry, articles, and the occasional rap, and regularly performs at literary festivals. The Dutch translation of his first novel, Tail of the Blue Bird (De Blauwe Vogel), was published in 2010, a crime novel about a Ghanaian village where a hunk of flesh is found and the police must figure out what exactly it is. Gorgeous descriptions of Ghanaian nature alternate with sharp passages about Ghanaian police corruption. The book was nominated for the Commonwealth Prize. Recurring themes in Parkes' writing include power, cultural conflict, love, family, and the friction between capitalism and humanism. He performs at poetry festivals around the world and is a regular commentator on BBC radio. He has recorded two CDs of poems: Incredible Blues and Nocture of Phrase.  In 2011 he published The Parade, a children's book about the spider Anansi, under the pen name K.P. Kojo.

(South Africa, 1985) is the rising star of South African literature. Her first novel Coconut deals with the quest of black South Africans for their new identity in a post-apartheid society and was the recipient of the European Union Literary Award in 2007. It is also a set work and used as a teaching tool at many schools within South Africa, and universities in South Africa and abroad. Three years later she received the prestigious Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature. Her second book, Spilt Milk, appeared in the Netherlands in 2011 entitled Gedane zaken. In this novel school principal Mohumagandi and father Bill meet up, years after their secret love affair. The enthusiastic black principal and the stiff, awkward father clash when the latter has to deal with the indecent behaviour of four pupils and solve it. Matlwa sees Toni Morrison as her great example. She is also a medical doctor and a Rhodes Scholar currently pursuing a masters in public health at Oxford University.

(Liberia, 1973) is a novelist, essayist, journalist and film critic. His debut novel Land of the Fathers (1999) is partly based on his grandmother's stories and deals with the clash between slaves returning from the US and other Liberians. The novel The Black Napoleon (2015) portrays Samori Touré, who founded the Wasulu-empire in western Africa in the 19th century. His journalism, including film reviews, appears in publications such as The New York Times, Trouw and One World. Together with  Ebissé Rouw he compiled Zwart (Black, 2018), a collection of stories by Afro-European authors from the Low Countries. Ongekende liefde (Unprecedented Love), in which he tells his life story to his ten-year-old daughter Bendu, was published in 2021. Sherif's historical novel The Emperor’s Son (2023) follows Zaiwulo, a young prodigy who trains under sage Talata of the Haidarah family in Musadu. Entangled in the intrigues of Emperor Samori, the 'Black Napoleon,' Zaiwulo matures into a formidable soldier.