(196) was born in England and since 1983 lives in Australia, where he works as a writer and journalist. he writes for amongst others the Sydney Morning Herald and Rolling Stone. Gilling lives on Tasmanaia, the former British penal colony. Although his presence their is not a punishment, he must, as an Englishman, have asked himself what the life of a prisoner was like then. His first novel Het andere kind (The other child) (2000), is proof of this reflection. Although the novel is fictitious, the writer puts himself in the shoes of different colonists. Het andere kind was internationally received with much enthusiasm and became a New York Times Notable Book. In 2003 his second novel De vlucht van Miles en Isabel (The escape of Miles and Isabel) appeared.

(Netherlands, 1945) writes novels, stories, essays, lectures and columns with a strong historical bent. She debuted with 1987's Tine of de dalen waar het leven woont (Tine, or the Valleys Where Life Lives), a fictitious biography of 19th-century Dutch writer Multatuli's first wife. Her book De naam van de vader (The Name of the Father) won the 1994 Multatuli Prize. In 2002 she wrote Pelican Bay, about slavery in the Caribbean and the Netherlands. Her essay collection Schatplicht (Tribute) appeared in 2013, and her 2016 novel Aan het eind van de dag (At the End of the Day) is simultaneously a portrait of a career woman and a snapshot of the second half of the 20th century. De val van Thomas G. (The fall of Thomas G.) tells about the publisher of a controversial book. Noordervliet's body of work was awarded the 2018 Constantijn Huygens Prize.

(Marken, 1958-2009) was a poet, a writer and a commentator, with a regular column on the Forum page and the book pages of the Volkskrant. Zeeman was the editor of the arts section of the Volkskrant and from 2006-2007 its Rome correspondent. In 2006 he and the writer Abdelkader Benali published an exchange of letters, exchanging ideas on politics, life, love and literature. In 2002 Zeeman received the Gouden Ganzenveer (Golden Goose Quill) for his merits for Dutch literature. Zeeman became well-known in the 1990s as the host of his monthly book programme 'Late at night after a short walk', later to be renamed 'Zeeman with books'. In 1991 he published his first volume of poetry, Beeldenstorm (Iconoclasm), winning him the C. Buddingh Prize. His second volume Verhoudingen (Relationships) appeared in 1995. In the same year he published short stories entitled De Verduistering (The Darkening). He died in 2009.

Syahrial (Sumatra, 1967) began making music at an eary age. At the same time he learned to make tradiotional Sumatran wind instruments, such as the saluang, bansi sarunai and rebab pesisir. Since 1998 Syahrial works as a composer for one of Indonesia's best dance companies, Gumarang Sakti. Alongside this, he works as a freelance composer and designer of new wind instruments that enrich his music. He performs with a group of five Sumatran musicians.

(Suriname, 1956), a Dutch jazz singer and voice teacher of Surinemese origin, has performed around the world for Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, among others. From 2013 to 2016 she toured the Netherlands with Ella!, a production that will be staged again in 2017, the centenary of Ella Fitzgerald's birth. Jannah won two Edisons and appeared seven times at the North Sea Jazz Festival. She was the first Dutch performer to land a record contract with the prestigious jazz label Blue Note. Jannah has performed with musicians such as Chick Corea, Frank Boeijen, the Rosenberg Trio and Willem Breuker. For this festival in 2002, she set poems to music from the Netherlands, Suriname, the Antilles, South Africa and Indonesia. She took the same program to literary festivals in Utrecht, Suriname, the Antilles, South Africa and Indonesia. In 2015 she toured Russia and appeared in Dutch theatres in a musical production about the battle for emancipation of two women in Suriname.

(Netherlands, 1967) is a fiction and non-fiction author, documentarian and critic. In 1995 she emigrated to Surinam as a freelance journalist and in 1997 published Reishandboek Suriname, a cultural travel guide. Her first published short story Voor William (For William) won the incentive prize of the Kwakoe literary awards. In 2005 her novel debut de Parbo-blues appeared, followed in 2009 by the novel Solo, een liefde (Solo, a love) about the ambition of two lovers in colonial Surinam who desire a better life. Her non-fictional Fansi's stilte, een grootmoeder en de slavernij (Fansi's Silence, a Grandmother and Slavery, 2015) tells the life of her grandmother. In Plantage Wildlust (2020), she describes life on a Surinamese plantation in the early 20th century, during the period of contract labour, through various characters. De wilde vaart (Tramp Trade, 2022) recounts, in text and image, a boat journey in which Leuwsha and her husband travel Surinamese waters in search of their own core and the resilience of a people. Leuwsha is cultural attaché of the Dutch Embassy in Paramaribo, and writes columns, articles and reviews for various Surinamese media.

(Aruba, 1959) Lasana M. Sekou is the author of 13 books of poetry, short stories, monologues and essays. Born Harold Hermano Lake in Aruba in 1959, he grew up in Sint Maarten. Sekou studied political science and mass communication in the USA, where he changed his name to Lasana (poet) Sekou (warrior). His books, such as The Salt Reaper and Nativity, have been required reading at Caribbean and North American universities. He is the editor of National Symbols of St. Martin and The Independence Papers – Readings on a New Political Status for St. Maarten/St. Martin. He also produced Fête – The first recording of traditional St. Martin festive music. Sekou lectures on history, culture, politics and literature at schools, universities and festivals throughout the world. His poetry has appeared in journals such as The Massachusetts Review, Del Caribe, De Gids, and Boundary 2. In 1982, Sekou founded House of Nehesi Publishers in New York. In 1984, he established the small press in Sint Maarten, where he lives and continues to publish well-known and new writers www.houseofnehesipublish.com.

(South Africa, 1952) is a poet, writer, academic and a cherished reciter. Her book Country of My Skull (2000, adapted for film in 2004) is a personal account of the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She published her autobiographical memoirs as A Change of Tongue (2003). Krog has won many prizes, including the Hertzog prize in South Africa and the 2018 Gouden Ganzenveer in the Netherlands. An anthology of her poetry was published in Dutch in 2010, titled Hoe zeg je dat (How Do You Say That), and Begging to be Black, the sequel to Country of My Skull and A Change of Tongue.

(Zimbabwe, 1962) graduated from the University of Zimbabwe and is a honorary fellow at the University of Iowa. In 1989 he published his first collection of poems Rukuvhute, which in 1990 received an honourable mention at the Noma Awards. His other collections of poems are Champupuri (1994) and Hakurarwi, We Shall not Sleep (1998). He is known as one of the most talented performing poets and storytellers of Zimbabwe. Further more he has also written several children's books. Chirikure Chirikure reads his poetry in Shona and English and most of the time performs together with his band DeteMbira. Backed by this group he made the CD Napukeni. He has worked as a publisher for quite some time and is now a consultant in Harare. Chirikure Chirikure assists in the editing of the Zimbabwean part of the Poetry International Web.
WIN 2004

(Bali, 1944) after completing his law study in Yogyakarta followed his artistic vocation and became a writer, dramatist, scriptwriter, journalist and essayist. He gained a lot of experience abroad. From 1985 to 1988 he worked as writer and director for various universities in the U.S.A and he taught modern Indonesian literature and theater. He has his own theater group Mandiri, which he founded at the beginning of the 1970's. In his short stories Putu Wijaya likes to shock and desorientate his readers; according to him he places 'mental time bomb's' in the ordinairy life of ordinairy people. Surrealism and absurdism, humor and violence form the foundations of his stories. Putu Wijaya avoids analysing and moralizing; he leaves the end open and the reader confused.
WIN2003

(Herschel, Zuid-Afrika, 1948) is a playwright, writer, academic, painter, filmer and one of the most important novellists in South Africa. At birth he was named as Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda, but his street friends in Soweto called him Zakes. He studied in the U.S.A., Great Britain, Lesotho and Capetown. His first collection of poems Bits of Debris appeared in 1986 and his first novella Ways of Dying appeared in 1995. Presently Zakes Mda commutes between Johannesburg, where he works as a dramatist, and Ohio, where he works as a tutor of English/creative writing. With his novel Het rode hart (The red heart)(2002) Mda won the Commonwealth Writers Prize Africa Regions and the South African Sunday Times Fiction Award. The Dutch translation of Ways of dying will be published in the spring of 2004 by De Geus publishers.
WIN2003

Leominster MA, United States, 1964) is an American journalist who is critical of the social structure of her country. Her work is mostly focussed on young impoverished adults. She has written articles about juvenile law, women in prisons and abandoned children. These articles have been published amongst others in the Village Voice, Esquire and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc has followed and observed daily life in the Bronx for more than ten years. This fieldwork resulted in 2003 in a docu-novel Random Family . This book, which will be published in the Netherlands, tells the story of two girls and their past loves. The two girls endure violence, pregnancies, homelessness and imprisonment. In 1985 they are still teenagers and the world lies ahead of them. Ten years later they have their own teenage daughters, who will almost inevitably follow the same road.
WIN 2004

(Vienna, 1954) is a philosopher and writer. He considers himself a born storyteller, and the philosophical aspect in his work is clearly present. From an early age he became fascinated with Hegel, although he radically turned Hegel's most important philosophyon its head: mankind does not develop towards a peak, on the contrary, it removes itself from it. According to Menasse, birth is the peak and what follows is merely a slow death. Robert Menasse studied literature and philosophy, after that he taught literature at the university of Saõ Paulo for seven years. Since 1988 Menasse is a fulltime writer. He writes novels, essays and, together with his wife and daughter, children's books. He is also a translator of Portugese into German. Menasse's books, translated into Dutch are De verdrijving uit de hel (Driven out of hell) and the trilogy Bar Hopeloos; Zalige tijden, breekbare wereld en Kentering (Very hopeless wonderfull times, Fragile world and A turning of the tide). In the book Das Land ohne Eigenschaften (The land without characteristics) from 1992, he analysed, in a razor sharp and controversial way, the mental climate of Austria.