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.

(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.

(soprano) was born in Sierra Leone. In 2003 she started studying classical voice performance with Eugenie Ditewig at the Utrecht Conservatory. She studies with Charlotte Margiono (voice) and Lieve Geuens (jazz), and has done masterclasses with, among others, Kurt Equiluz and Peter Kooij. She sang solo parts with various choirs in Sierra Leone, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. A highlight was her performance in “Let’s have peace please” by Henk Alkema, which he composed on the occasion of a visit by queen Beatrix to the Utrecht Dom. Pearlmira likes to work a lot in contemporary music too. she sang solo parts in the opera "Smeltwater" by Tom Dicke, "Huile Vierge" by Jelte Heringa, "The Jetsetter" by Anne Ku, "Quattro Stagioni d'Amore" by Robert Loeber, conducted by Henk Alkema and "De Onwankelbare" by Caroline Ansink with conductor Marcel Sijm, conducted by Jussi Jaatinen. In 2011 she could be heard in "Les Spectateurs" by theatre company OMSK in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria. In addition Pearlmira Vincent is a dedicated and skilful singing master.

(Leyden, 1949) is one of the most prominent figures in Dutch literary non-fiction. He has also gained international recognition with works such as Baltische zielen (Baltic Souls) en De rechtvaardigen (The Righteous). His writings have been translated into 23 languages, among which English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Chinese and Russian. His two most recent books are set in former Dutch East Indies, where both of his parents lived and were held captive in Japanese internment camps during the war: De tuinen van Buitenzorg (The Gardens of Buitenzorg, 2021) and De Kampschilders (The Camp Painters, 2022). In September 2023, Brokken was honored with the Golden Quill Award for his entire body of work. Brokken studied journalism in Utrecht and political science in Bordeaux. After a career in journalism (including roles at Trouw and HP/De Tijd), Brokken decided to dedicate himself fully to his writing in 1986. His debut, the adapted novel De provincie (The province, 1984), had already been published by that time. He has since produced over thirty-five titles - a mix of fiction and non-fiction - in which he unveils the histories of countries he has visited, from Africa and the Caribbean to Indonesia.

as of December 2011 is director of De Bezige Bij publishing house. Before that he headed the Nederlandse Letteren Fonds (a merger of the Nederlands Literair Productie- en Vertalingenfonds and the Fonds voor de Letteren), the NLPVF and the Institut Néerlandais in Paris. As director of the Dutch Literary Fund in recent years Pröpper further enlarged a colossal network among writers and foreign publishers. He wrote numerous essays and articles on both Dutch and international literature. He also worked as a journalist, literary critic, editor and editor-in-chief of various cultural television programmes.