(Morocco, 1973) is a journalist, columnist, translator, researcher and producer. She publishes in various media (including Dutch national daily newspaper NRC and women's magazine Linda); runs her own online magazine for culture lovers, Aicha Qandisha. She compiled a story collection about Arab women, Achter de sluier (Behind the Veil, 1999); 2013 saw the publication of her book Arabieren kijken (Looking at Arabs), about "ordinary" people in the Arab world. She made TV programs for various broadcasters, including the documentary series Seks en de Zonde (Sex and Sin). Together with Michelin-starred chef Soenil Bahadoer, she wrote the culinary books Spicy Chef (2020) and Streetfood (2022). She published two further books in 2022: Een koffer vol citroenen (A Suitcase Full of Lemons), a requiem for and portrait of her mother, and Arbeidsmigranten in Nederland (Migrant Labourers in the Netherlands).

(Congo-Brazzaville, 1966) is one of the best-known Franco-African writers. In novels such as Verre cassé, African Psycho and Black Bazaar he sketches his African youth and the life of the African inhabitants of Paris, the city where he went to study in 1989. In 2012 he returned to his birthplace Pointe-Noire. His novel Petit  Piment (Little Pepper, 2015) resulted from that trip. He very humorously describes the life of a boy who flees an orphanage to move to the coastal City of Pointe-Noire, where he lives among thieves and whores. The novel is dedicated to the boys of the Côte Sauvage, the edge of that city, with whom the author spoke. Mabanckou teaches French literature at the University of California Los Angeles. His work has been translated into more than ten languages.