(1978, Morocco) is a writer and journalist (for among others Vrij Nederland and Nieuwe Revu) who grew up in Amsterdam. In 2006 his debut appeared, Een Verhaal uit de Stad Damsko, about the life of a young pupil from a migrant family, in the underprivileged part of Damsko, the Surinamese name for Amsterdam. De Volkskrant wrote: "Bahara is not yet thirty and made his debut last year with this novel, which is reminiscent of the De Avonden by Reve: the same oppressive desolation." Een Verhaal uit de Stad Damsko was nominated for the Selexyz Debuutprijs. Pollo de Pimentel, director of among other films De oesters van Nam Kee, has an option for the film rights. Bahara is working on a second novel. In 2000 and 2001, using a ps, he won the El Hizjra-literature prize for prose for young people to age 25.

(Sweden, 1978) has a Tunesian father and a Swedish mother. He studied literary theory in Stockholm and economics in Paris. In 2003 he made a successful debut with the novel Ett öga rött which was published in a Dutch translation in 2007 (A camel without a hump). In it an Arab pupil struggles with his identity in Stockholm and sets his own cultural background against the social reality around him. The novel was adapted for film. Khemiri's first play, Invasion!, gives an image (of the abuse) of the fear of the other. It was successfully staged in Sweden, Germany and France. Khemiri's second novel, Montecore, is being translated in Dutch.

(1974, Saudi Arabia) is an up-and-coming Egyptian writer. In 2003 he published his first novel, An Takoun Abbas El Abd (Being Abbas El Abd), which appeared in English in 2006. The book will be published in a Dutch translation and launched at Winternachten (publishing house De Geus). In his novel Alaidy combines street language with classical Arabic. According to Humphrey Davies, the English translator of the book, this results in “a disorienting sense of a breakdown of borders.” The Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram wrote enthusiastically: “The millennial generation’s most celebrated literary achievement.” In addition to being a novelist Alaidy is a cartoonist. He writes politically orientated cartoons for the Egyptian weekly al-Dostour. He is also a scriptwriter for various tv programmes and films and a graphic designer.

(Netherlands, 1958) has produced and presented the VPRO radio programme OVT since 2002, a two-hour show about the historical roots of current events as well as newly released historical books, films, commemorations, and anything else related to history. The show features live interviews, reportage, columns and a weekly documentary during the last half hour. He was already linked to OVT since 1992 as a programmer and previously freelanced for other national Dutch broadcasters such as VARA and IKON.