(Bali, 1944) after completing his law study in Yogyakarta followed his artistic vocation and became a writer, dramatist, scriptwriter, journalist and essayist. He gained a lot of experience abroad. From 1985 to 1988 he worked as writer and director for various universities in the U.S.A and he taught modern Indonesian literature and theater. He has his own theater group Mandiri, which he founded at the beginning of the 1970's. In his short stories Putu Wijaya likes to shock and desorientate his readers; according to him he places 'mental time bomb's' in the ordinairy life of ordinairy people. Surrealism and absurdism, humor and violence form the foundations of his stories. Putu Wijaya avoids analysing and moralizing; he leaves the end open and the reader confused.
WIN2003

(Tunisia, 1960) is a writer, essayist, traveller and popular panel moderator. He has published fiction and non-fiction; was the director of the debating platform and venue De Balie; and was founder of the literary bookshop Perdu and the cultural centre De Tolhuistuin (all in Amsterdam). He performed with Enkidu Khaled in their jointly created documentary play Bagdad. Due to his curiosity about how artists recreate their cities after a crisis, he travelled to Sarajevo, Beirut, Tirana, Algiers, New York, Kiev, Jakarta and Qamishlo. At the invitation of PAX, he wrote Srebrenica & PAX 1995-2020, an overview of 25 years of support to the Association of Women of Srebrenica by the IKV and PAX in response to the genocide in Bosnia. In 2021 he published Gastvrijheid (Hospitality), in which he explores the art of hospitality through a mix of travel stories, observations, memories and imagery.