(Hoogezand-Sappemeer, NL, 1975) modelled his successful third novel, Kinderen van het Ruige Land (Children of the Rough Country, 2012) on his youth; it won several prizes. Slaap zacht, Johnny Idaho (Sleep Sweetly, Johnny Idaho, 2015) and En ik herinner me Titus Broederland (And I Remember Titus Brotherland, 2016) both won the novel prize of the Harland Awards. Aside from writing, Hulst is a literary critic, travel journalist and essayist. In 2017 he initiated Als dit zo doorgaat (If this Goes on), a story collection in which 24 Dutch writers react to the right shift in the political climate. He is also a musician. His books Wolfskleren (Wolf's Clothing, 2009) and Motel Songs (2017) both had accompanying albums and he is the frontman of the Dutch-language band De Meisjes (The Girls).

(Netherlands, 1986) is a successful musician, author and journalist. She debuted as a novelist with Concept M (2018). This well-received sci-fi novel takes place in the Netherlands in 2020. A young woman makes sense in a surprising way of her condition of colourlessness, a chronic disease that has grown to epidemic proportions in Europe. She radicalizes and ends up in an organization that carries out attacks. Romeijn has performed as a pop-music artist at festivals such as Lowlands and Noorderslag. With her beats, razor-sharp lyrics and analog synthesizers, she's the uncrowned queen of Dutch-language electropop. Her album M, the soundtrack to her novel and her first self-produced record, was released in 2019, followed in 2020 by her debut poetry collection Leegstand (Vacancy). In 2021 she released the album Godzilla and published 7B, another sci-fi novel set in the year 2040 in Groningen, where military personnel train in a huge complex for a war over natural resources.

(Syrië, 1989) takes part in Asko|Schönbergs K[h]AOS, an initiative of Asko|Schönberg that supports the musical and theatrical development of young musicians and artists. Jaber Fayad plays, among others, in interdisciplinary stage plays such as Salam by Noord-Nederlands Toneel, Club Guy & Roni en Asko|Schönberg. Before fleeing his country, he lived in Damascus where he studied Turkish, Arabic and Azerbaidjani music at the conservatory. He plays oud and also builds this instrument. Since 2015, Fayad lives in The Netherlands, where he quickly rebuilt his music activities. He performs, for example, regularly with his band Sirocco.

(Israel, 1982) studied psychology at the University of Tel Aviv and then film at Jerusalem's Sam Spiegel Film School. She has written various screenplays and short stories. Her first novel, One Night, Markovitch (2012) won various (international) prizes. Her second book, Waking Lions (2014) has been translated into many languages and turned into a TV series in the US. The surgeon Etan Green accidentally kills a refugee with his car and drives on. The widow, however, manages to find and blackmail him into providing hundreds of illegals with medical help. Although it reads like a thriller, the novel is mainly about moral questions: should Green have told the truth? Does he help the refugees out of guilt and self-preservation or is he a hero? The reader is continually prodded to ask him- or herself the question: what would I have done?

(USA, 1972) is the author of the story collection Farewell Navigator: Stories (2008) and the novel The Listeners (2012). Red Clocks, a book in the spirit of Margaret Atwood about four women living in an imaginary America where abortion is illegal, single mothers may not adopt, and there are further political regulations hostile to women. She has commented that the "frightening details of the misogynist world in which her story takes place are inspired by actual legislative proposals of men who at this moment have power in the government" (The Washington Post). Many are asking themselves when her fictional vision of the US will become reality. Besides writing, Zumas teaches writing at Oregon State University in Portland.

(South Africa) os the stage name/nom de plume of rapper, writer, poet, actor and activist Simon Witbooi. He grew up impoverished in Capetown, where rap and hiphop became his outlet for the social inequality he saw all around. Although he began in English, Afrikaans quickly took over as his chosen langauge. HemelBesem (Heaven's Broom) calls himself an edutainer or educator because he wants to build bridges between communities and address African social issues. In his 2017 book God praat Afrikaans (God Speaks Afrikaans), he passionately defends the Afrikaans language. He is an ambassador for the Afrikaans Language and Culture Society (ATKV) and visits schools on a yearly basis in collaboration with the University of Stellenbosch for the Woorde Open Wêrelde (WOW) project. He is a descendant of Hendrik Witbooi, one of the greatest 19th-century resistance heroes during the genocide by the German colonizers in Southwestern Africa, now Namibia.

(India, 1960) teaches and writes about classical Indian literature and has a deep knowledge of the myths and traditional stories of India. She has a PhD in South Asian languages and literature from the University of Chicago. Sattar translated many text from Sanskrit, including Valmiki's 1996 Ramayana. More recent publications include Lost Loves: Exploring Rama's Anguish (2011) and Uttara: The Book of Answers (2016). She also writes for children: her Ramayana for Children (2017) has been published worldwide. In 2008 she co-founded Sangam House, the first and only completely financially independent writer's residency programme in India. Every year, Sangam House moves to a new location; in 2019 it is in Bangalore.

(Uganda) grew up in Uganda and studied creative writing at the University of Lancaster in the UK; she received her doctorate in the same subject. In 2013 she received the Kwani Manuscript Project for her thesis project, The Kintu Saga. This prize is given to still-unpublished manscripts by African writers. Her manuscript was published as a novel, titled Kintu, in 2014. She has won various other prizes including the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for "Let's Tell This Story Properly" and the 2018 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. A mixture of Ugandan oral storytelling traditions, folktakes, myths, biblical elements and history is characteristic of her work. She lives and works in Manchester, where she teaches creative writing at the university.