(South Korea, 1955) is one of South Korea's most important contemporary poets. She teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. Kim published her first poems in 1979 and was one of the first women to have her work included in the literary magazine Munhak kwa jisŏng (Literature and Intellect), which led the resistance against the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s. Since the 1990s, her work has gained increasing recognition and she has received numerous awards. In her experimental work, she explores the complex existence of women who are grandmothers, mothers and daughters in the context of Korea's highly patriarchal society. Many of Kim Hyesoon's poems have been translated from Korean into English by the Korean-American poet Don Mee Choi, including Kim's books Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers (2008); All the Garbage of the World, Unite! (2011); Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream (2014), I'm OK, I'm Pig! (2014), Autobiography of Death (2018), Phantom Pain Wings (2019), If the Earth Dies, Whom Will the Moon Circle? (2022) and Synchronized Sea Anemone (2025).
.
Go to the website of Kim Hyesoon

(The Netherlands, 1987) debuted in 2013 with Vluchtautogedichten (Getaway Car Poems), which won the C. Buddingh' Prize. The jury praised his "boasting, swagger, and bravado." Van der Graaff escapes everyday reality in his very own getaway car — namely poetry — looking for new dimensions. His second volume Dood werk (Dead Work, 2015) won the J.C. Bloem Prize. He publishes poetry and prose in various magazines, performs regularly, and is editor and co-founder of the online literary magazine Samplekanon. His first novel Wormen en engelen (Worms and Angels, 2017) is a contemporary quest for the meaning of faith. In 2020 he published the poetry collection Nederland in stukken (The Netherlands in Pieces), followed by his second novel Onder asfalt (Under Asphalt, 2022). He curates compelling poetry recitation programmes each year for Writers Unlimited.

Go to website Maarten van der Graaff

(The Netherlands, 1991) is a writer of prose and poetry. She has written columns and essays for various newspapers and magazines and is an editor at the literary magazine De Revisor. In 2016, she graduated from the Creative Writing program at ArtEZ with a collection of poems and letters titled Hoe de eerste vonken zichtbaar waren (How the first sparks became visible). In 2018, the collection was awarded the Poëziedebuutprijs Aan Zee. Her debut novel Confrontaties (Confrontations) was highly praised and won the Hebban Debut Prize, the Anton Wachter Prize, and the Best Book for Young Adults Award. In 2022, Simone wrote the novella Zo hoog de zon stond for the Brabants Book Present. In 2024, her second poetry collection Marshmallow was awarded with the Jan Campert-prijs.

(The Netherlands, 1993) writes poetry and prose in Dutch and English. She studied at the University of Amsterdam and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her debut collection Het is warm in de hivemind (It's warm in the hivemind) was published in 2021 and was awarded the C. Buddingh' Prize for best poetry debut in 2022. In November 2025, her second poetry collection was published in both Dutch and English by De Bezige Bij: Het netwerk moet gebouwd worden and The network must be built.

Go to website Maxim Garcia Diaz
Instagram @maximgarciadiaz

(The Netherlands, 1975) is a writer of novels, poems, stories, essays, and screenplays. His work is characterized by the compelling way in which he brings characters involved in historical injustices to life. His debut novel Armin (2008) is about children adrift after World War II. In Ik was Amerika (I Was America, 2010), a Dutch prisoner of war in World War II befriends a farm worker in a camp in the US. Decades later, he seeks him out again. Peek received the BNG Literature Prize and the F. Bordewijk Prize for this work. Godin, held (Goddess, Hero, 2014) is a candid novel about the mysterious and all-too-human nature of love. In his pamphlet Verzet! Pleidooi voor communisme (Resistance! A Plea for Communism, 2015), he undermines decades of capitalist indoctrination. His novel A.D. (2021) tells about the events and hardships aboard one of the first seaships in the 16th century to present-day Indonesia and the arrival there. In 2025, his poetry collection Orang/oetan was published.

(South Korea, 1980) is a poet, translator of Korean poetry and film scripts, and lecturer at the Department of English at Utrecht University. She grew up in the United States and lives in Utrecht. Motherhood, birth, heredity, and the racialization of everyday life form the common thread in her balanced lyrical work. She is the author of the (English-language) poetry collection I, Too, Dislike It (1913 Press, 2016) and has published in De Gids, Artforum, Boston Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. In 2024, her second poetry collection, Festival, was published in English by Belladonna Press and in Dutch by Uitgeverij Chaos. She works on the translation of Kim Hyesoon's poetry collection Synchronized Sea Anemone (2025).

Instagram: @quelpart

(South Korea) is a poet and translator. She was born in Seoul, educated in the United States, and now lives in Berlin. Choi's works of documentary poetry draw on family history as well as archival material to interrogate "the overlapping histories of Korea and the U.S." In addition to her own poetry, she is a prolific translator to English of modern Korean women poets, including several books by Kim Hyesoon. Choi is the author of The Morning News Is Exciting (2010), Petite Manifesto (2014), Hardly War (2016), DMZ Colony (2020), which won the National Book Award, and Mirror Nation (2024). In it, a Mercedes wheel rim rolling down the street evokes memories of her father on the Glienicke Bridge between Berlin and Potsdam. This memory, in turn, becomes a catalyst for delving into the violent, colonial and neo-colonial history of South Korea.

Go to website Don Mee Choi