(Cairo, 1957) is a writer, dentist, and one of the founders of the opposition movement Kefaya that helped launch the Egyptian Revolution. He had his international breakthrough with The Yacoubian Building, a novel about the lives of the inhabitants of an apartment block in Cairo. Although it paints a disconcerting picture of Egyptian society, it remained a bestseller in that country for years. It was also made into a film and a TV series. Al Aswani's writing style is quick and witty, with short chapters full of action, atmosphere and drama. His 2004 novella Friendly Fire, about a young man highly critical of corruption in Egypt, was banned. His newspaper columns about political developments in Egypt have been collected in On the state of Egypt. The Dutch translation of his latest novel will be presented at the 2015 Winternachten festival: De automobielclub (The Automobile Club of Egypt), about Cairo in the late 1940s, when Egypt was a British protectorate.

(Oirschot, 1957) from 1983 to 1987 he worked in Surinam. Van Kempen is the compiler of two extensive anthologies: Spiegel van de Surinaamse poëzie (Mirror of the Surinamese Poetry) (1995) and Mama Sranan. 200 jaar Surinaamse verhaalkunst (Mama Sranan, 200 Years of Surinamese Storytelling) (1999). In 1997 his first novel, Plantage Lankmoedigheid (Plantation Patience) appeared. He also published: Het Nirwana is een lege trein (Nirvana is an Empty Train) (2000) and Pakistaanse nacht (Pakistani Night) (2002). In 2002 he obtained his doctorate with his thesis Een geschiedenis van de Surinaamse literatuur (A history of Surinamese literature). His anthology Noordoostpassanten (Northeast Transients), which he compiled together with Wim Rutgers, was presented at the Winternachten festival in 2005. In 2006 he published the novel Escape Routes.

(The Netherlands, 1960) is a literary critic, writer, curator, interviewer, debate leader and "ambassador between France and the Netherlands in the field of literature", as a French ambassador once said. She has been writing about literature for some 30 years, mainly for the NRC daily. She published books on French and European literature, on Hella S. Haasse and Cees Nooteboom. Her In de voetsporen van mijn grootvader (2021) is an autobiographical search for her literary genes. Before that, she published Met Parijse pen. Literaire omzwervingen (in collaboration with photographer Bart Koetsier, 2020), which takes readers to Paris for walks in the footsteps of famous Dutch and French writers. She was joint artistic curator of the Netherlands' Guest of Honour role at the 2024 Leipzig Book Fair with German journalist Bettina Baltschev.

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