(Poland, 1980) studied journalism and political science in Warsaw. After an internship at CNN in Istanbul he wrote a series of reports about Turkey for the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza; some of this material formed part of his acclaimed essay collection Zabójca z miasta moreli (Assassin from Apricot City). In it, Szablowski provides a nuanced portrait of a society torn between East and West, Islamism and Islamophobia, the desire to belong to Europe and an aversion to all things European. He always chooses a particular angle; for example, he went looking for the story behind the shoe thrown at George W. Bush by an Iraqi journalist. In 2010, his reportage Dziś przypłyną tu dwa trupy (Two Bodies Washed Up Today), about immigrants trying to reach Europe via Istanbul, won the Journalism Prize of the European Parliament. At the invitation of the Flemish-Duch cultural organization Huis de Buren (Neighbours' House), Szablowski wrote Alle poorten van Lublin (All the Gates of Lublin), a literary portrait of the Polish city of Lublin.

(1977) is an Islam specialist and a columnist with Trouw newspaper and Volzin magazine. She was raised by a Dutch mother and an Islamic, half-Indonesian father. Her father's uncle was Inayat Khan, the founder of Western Sufism. After her studies Youskine moved to Syria to experience "real Islam" and learned that women are not as oppressed there as the West likes to think. She was discredited in 2012 after stating in her Trouw column that she would "love to punch in the nose" anyone who might insult the Prophet Mohammed. At first Youskine aimed to improve the world via her pen, but has lost that illusion. She criticizes the debate about Islam in the Netherlands: "There is no more knowledge. If this continues, the Netherlands will become intellectually and spiritually vacant." Yet she remains committed to increasing knowledge about Islam in the Netherlands through her writing.

(Amsterdam, NL, 1963) studied Dutch language and literature in Amsterdam. He writes reviews, interviews, columns and obituaries, and heads the books section of De Volkskrant newspaper. In 2011 he published Eindelijk Sneeuw (Snow at Last: twelve wintry stories about artists, writers, and books, from Willem Witsen's cityscapes to the tears of Mrs. Dickens). Exerpts from his reviews and interviews were published in the books Langzaam lopen is al verdacht (Walking Slowly is Suspicious, 1999), De ongeneeslijke lezer – een werkboek (The Incurable Reader: a workbook, 2002), Het woord is aan de schrijver (The Writer Has the Floor, 2005), and De Broodschrijver (The Hack, 2006), about Bart Chabot's biography of Herman Brood. In 2012 he published Kreten uit een urn (Cries from an Urn), a lecture on the role of the critic in our time. His text "Naar boven mit Brakman" ("Up With Brakman") accompanied the 2015 unveiling of the Brakman monument in Enschede.