(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.

(1960, The Hague, NL) emigrated from the Netherlands to Australia in 1967. There, he studied Dutch, English, rhetoric and philosophy, became a nurse, and debuted as a writer in 1998. His 2002 best-seller The Crimson Petal and the White, about a young prostitute in Victorian London, constituted his international breakthrough. In Dickensian scenarios sprinkled with Freudian, post-Marxist and feminist themes he describes how she becomes a governess and, after being fired, learns to survive together with her pupil. In 2015 The Book of Wonderful New Things appeared; it is about the love between a minister, who travels to another planet, and his wife, who stays home and receives his letters. He wrote this best-seller while losing his wife Eva to cancer. He said he was done with writing, but did in fact publish Undying - A Love Story, a volume of poetry in memory of the love of his life.