(1961, Morocco) acquired fame with his novel Les Clandestins (The Clandestines; (2000), which was translated into Dutch. In this story he gives a face to the Moroccans who in a last desperate effort try to reach Europe and lose their lives. Elalamy belongs to the new crop of young writers who grew up after Moroccan independence from France. The Moroccan identity forms an important leitmotiv in his work. His collection of short stories Tqarqib Ennab (Rumours) from 2004 is the first book fully written in darija, the Moroccan dialect of Arabic. ‘To show it is a real language, alive and creative,’ he said about it in an interview with Trouw. Elalamy has three novels to his name, of which Les Clandestins was awarded the Grand Prix Atlas 2001. In 2004 he published a series of portraits of Moroccans in Morocco (Miniatures). Apart from being a writer Elalamy is a visual artist and a teacher of style and media at the university of Kenitra. In 2009 he made the literary installation Nomad. In Morocco sharp analyses of his literary collages have led to censorship of his visual art. His novels have been translated into Dutch, Arabic, English, Spanish and Italian.

(Hongkong) Her debut, the novel Girl in Translation, almost immediately made it to the New York Times bestseller list. Even Oprah Winfrey called the debut of this Chinese American Dutch woman a must. In the Netherlands too her novel received a great deal of acclaim. In Almost Home Kwok describes the life of Kimberley Chang, a Chinese migrant girl. With her mother, a talented musician, she leaves Hongkong for Brooklyn, where she is exploited from the very start. They live in a slum, work themselves to death in a factory and in the meantime try desperately to master the language. Eventually, Kim succeeds in escaping poverty. As a young child Kwok moved from Hongkong to New York at an early age. She was five and didn’t understand a word of English. In the daytime she went to school, in the evening she worked in a factory. Kwok could escape poverty in the end because she was highly gifted. She got scholarships, which enabled her to study. She chose the sciences, went to work in a laboratory, and got to learn the Dutch poet and scientist Leo Vroman. Love brought her to the Netherlands. Before the publication of her successful debut – which was translated in more than ten languages – she taught English at the University of Leiden and worked as a translator.

(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).