Gevorg Gilants / Armenia

Armenian poet, translator, essay writer. Graduated from the Vanadzor branch of the National Polytechnic University of Armenia and Moscow Maxim Gorky Literature Institute (1999, 2005). Gevorg Gilants’s poems are published in various literary magazines and papers: "Garun" (Arm.), "Artasahmanyan grakanutyun" (Arm.), "Nairi"(Arm.), "Druzhba narodov"(Rus.), "Sibirskie ogni"(Rus.), "Sovremennaya poeziya"(Rus.), "Yeniseyski literator"(Rus.),"Shpatie culture" (Romania), Newspapers - "Literaturnaya gazeta" (Rus.), " Grakan tert " (Arm.). His poems are also published in online editions (45parallel.net; citybooks.eu). Gilants has been a participant of numerous international poetry festivals and events, including "Voloshinsky Sentyabr", "Literaterra", "Grakan Tapan".Poets works are translated into Russian, English, Dutch, Romanian languages.He’s an author of three books of poetry: "Unfading Pocketbook" (WUA Publishing, Yerevan, 2003); "Fly You, My Beast," (Obyedennnaya Kniga Publishers, Moscow, 2006); "ARS - meta" (Antares Publishing House, Yerevan 2014).

Volker Schmidt / Germany

Volker Schmidt, author, director and actor, was born in 1976 in Klosterneuburg (Austria). He graduated from the Vienna Conservatory. He played at theaters in Vienna, Berlin, Graz and others and was an actor in several films. As a director he staged plays at the Wiener Festwochen in Vienna, the Staatstheater in Hanover, the Staatstheater in Braunschweig, the Theatre of St. Gallen, the Theatre in Magdeburg, the Neukölln Opera in Berlin, the Schauspielhaus in Vienna, the Latvian National Theatre in Riga, the German State Theater in Temeswar as well as at theatres in Copenhagen, Moscow, Skopje, and Bhutan. Since 2002 he has been working as a playwright with premieres at the Theatre Heidelberg, the Staatstheater in Hanover, the Schauspiel Leipzig, the Stadttheater Ingolstadt, the Schauspielhaus  and the Volkstheater in Vienna.

Volker Schmidt has received many awards, among others the jury and audience prize of the Heidelberger Stückemarkt for Die Mountainbiker (The Mountainbikers), and the Berlin Children's Theatre Prize. He was invited to the Theatertreffen's Stückemarkt Berlin, the Festival for Dramaturgy in Santiago de Chile as well as to the NET Festival Moscow. His plays have so far been translated into eleven languages and have been staged from Utrecht to Novosibirsk. In Vienna he regularly performs with his independent company the new space company, which got awarded the Nestroy Prize for the best off-production.

Alekper Aliyev /Azerbaijan/Switzerland

Alekper Aliyev, commonly known as Ali Akbar (born in 1978), is an Azerbaijani writer. Alekper attended a public school in Baku but after the eighth grade, he continued his secondary education in Turkey. In 1996, he was admitted to Marmara University and graduated with a degree in journalism in 2000. He continued to work in Turkey as the head of the communications department and translator at the Kaknus publishing house. Alekper's works mainly deal with the taboos in Azerbaijani society. He has written seven novels to this day and is also the editor-in-chief of the Kultura.az website. In 2009, Akbar published a book entitled Artush and Zaur, a homosexual love tale between an Armenian and an Azerbaijani who felt apart after Nagorno-Karabakh War. The book became highly controversial and was banned in bookstores in both Armenia and Azerbaijan which for the past two decades have been bitter rivals due to the ongoing ethnic conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and where homosexuality is still highly stigmatised.

Anisur Rahman / Bangladesh / Sweden

Anisur Rahman (b. 1978) was born in Madhupur in the district of Tangail, Bangladesh. He has been educated in Bengali and English language, literature, history, film and theatre studies from the University of Dhaka and the University of Stockholm. He contributes prose and poetry to different journals in various countries. He has authored more than twenty books of prose and poetry. His literary works have been translated into various languages for instance English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Spanish, Serbian and Georgian. Anisur Rahman has been awarded with the 2013 Prince Wilhelm Scholarship from the Swedish PEN. He currently lives in Uppsala, Sweden, where he was also a writer in residency 2009-2011 as part of the International PEN-network. He has been a guest at the Sor Juana University in Mexico City, Bilgi University in Istanbul and the Centre for Ibsen Studies at the University of Oslo. As a playwright, Anisur has done work for theatres in Bangladesh, Norway and Sweden, Swedish Radio and NRK Norwegian Radio. He has translated Henrik Ibsen’s play and 50 poems from English to Bengali. Anisur has also published collection of essays about Ibsen. He leads creative writing literary workshops in Oslo, Uppsala, Dhaka and other cities. He had had a pioneer role in founding the Literary Centre in Uppsala. He is moving from one city to the other for survival in life. However, he is determined to settle himself closer to the Bengali culture and language.

Volha Hapeyeva / Belarus

Volha Hapeyeva is the Belarusian poet, thinker, translator and linguist. Volha Hapeyeva is the author of several books of poetry and prose (“Niaholieny ranak” (Unshaven morning), “Prysak i požnia” (Embers and Stubble), “(v)iadomyja historyi” (Incr)edible Stories), etc.). Scholarship-holder of the programs in Germany, Austria and Latvia and prize-winner of literary prizes in Belarus. Her works were translated into English, German, Polish, Macedonian, Czech, Lithuanian, Latvian, Slovenian, Georgian and Russian. Participant of numerous literary festivals and conferences (Slovenia, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, etc.). Volha holds her PhD in linguistics. does researches in the fields of comparative linguistics, philosophy of language, sociology of the body, gender issues in culture and literature. She also translates from English, German, Chinese, Japanese. Collaborates with electronic musicians and gives audio-visual performances. Member of the Belarusian PEN-Centre and the Union of the Belarusian Writers.

Jaromír Typlt / Czech Republic

Czech poet, performer, essayist, and art theorist specializing in art brut. Jaromír Typlt was born in 1973 in Nová Paka, a small town in the Czech border region. He studied philosophy and Czech literature at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts, graduating in 1997 with a doctoral thesis on Czech surrealist poetry. He spent some time working for a therapeutic community for people with mental illness, and in 2000–2010 was the curator of a small gallery of photography and contemporary art. He currently lives in Prague. Typlt first appeared on the Czech literary scene in the 1990s with poetry that was influenced by a surrealist understanding of the imagination (Lost Inferno, 1994), and with short prose works in which he brought to life the unique spiritual atmosphere of his native region (Movable Thresholds of Temples, 1991; Opposite to Overthrow, 1996). He received the Jiří Orten Award in 1994. Since 2000, Typlt has increasingly moved beyond the field of literature towards live performance, music, and the visual arts. Since 2009, Typlt has regularly collaborated with composer Michal Rataj to create improvised audio-text experiments as part of their joint project entitled Škrábanice/Scribbles (an eponymous CD was released in 2014). In terms of collaboration with visual artists, his work with graphic artist Jan Měřička has been of fundamental importance, resulting in numerous unique artists’ books (e.g., Braincreasers, 2000). Working with photographer Viktor Kopasz, he created the bibliophile work Captivity (2001) and a short film in the form of a 3D poem (Vineyard, 2012). In autumn 2016, he releases a new collection of poems entitled For A Long Time.

Jürgen Rooste / Estonia

Jürgen Rooste was born in 1979 in Tallinn. He has worked as a journalist, a teacher, and the director of the Estonian Institute in Finland. In addition to close to a dozen poetry collections, he has published a number of joint books with friends. Furthermore, he has composed textbooks and dictionaries, organized poetry evenings and festivals since 1998, and runs the Cabaret Interruptus poetry-theater. Rooste has won Estonia's annual award for poetry on two occasions. He has received numerous prizes: Estonian Cultural Endowment's Award for Poetry (2005, 2013); Friedebert Tuglas Short Story Award (2007); Tallinn University Literary Award (2012). Rooste himself has been ‘rocking’ in the direct sense of the word: his poetry readings mostly take place with musical accompaniment. Rooste presents his poems accompanied by punk-rock music, either reciting or singing, 'humming, growling, wheezing, shouting, blabbering and other attempts at articulation'.

Olga Grjasnowa / Germany

Olga Grjasnowa was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1984 and grew up in the Caucasus. She has spent many years living abroad in Poland, Russia, Israel and Turkey. She is a graduate of the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. In 2011 she was awarded the European Border Crossers Prize by the Robert Bosch Foundation. Her celebrated and bestselling debut novel Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt (Hanser) (All Russians Love Birch Trees, publ. in English by Other Press 2014) was awarded the Klaus-Michael Kühne Prize and the Anna Seghers Prize in 2012. In 2014 Hanser Verlag published her second novel The Legal Haziness of a Marriage, which won the Adelbert von Chamisso Promotional Prize. Both novels have been adapted for the stage and will be adapted for cinema soon. Her most recent publication is God Is Not Shy (Aufbau 2017). Olga Grjasnowa was a writer in residence in Istanbul, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, and Lenzburg in Switzerland. She lives with her family in Berlin.

Ulla Lenze / Germany

Ulla Lenze, born in Mönchengladbach in 1973, studied music and philosophy in Cologne. Today she lives in Berlin and works as a freelance writer. Her debut novel Schwester und Bruder (Sister and Brother) (DuMont 2003) received several prizes, including the Ernst Willner award at the Ingeborg Bachmann competition. Ulla Lenze was a writer-in-residence in Damascus, Istanbul, Mumbai and Venice. In 2016, she travelled to North Africa, Iran and Iraq. Her recent novels are Der kleine Rest des Todes (What Little Remains of Death) (Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt 2012) and Die endlose Stadt (The Endless City) (Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt 2015). In 2016, she was awarded the prestigious Literary Prize of the Kulturkreis der Deutschen Wirtschaft.

Katja Lange-Müller / Germany

Katja Lange-Müller was born in 1951 in East Berlin. She was expelled from school for "un-socialist behaviour". After school-leaving qualifications she first learned to be a typesetter and worked for four years at the East Berlin newspaper Berliner Zeitung, followed by six years of care-work in women’s psychiatric wards in Berlin. She then was accepted to the Johannes R. Becher Literature Institute in Leipzig and continued her studies in the Mongolian People's Republic. During her one year stay she also worked at the Wilhelm-Pieck carpet factory in Ulan-Bator. In 1984 she moved to West Berlin, where she still lives today. Katja Lange-Müller published her first book in 1986. Since then numerous novels, short stories and radio plays have been published. She won major German literary awards including the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the Alfred Döblin Prize, and the Kasseler Literature Prize (for grotesque humour). In 2016 she was a visiting lecturer for poetics at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Clemens Meyer / Germany

Clemens Meyer was born 1977 in Halle (Saale) and now lives in Leipzig. His debut novel, Als wir träumten (As We Were Dreaming), was published in 2006, followed by Die Nacht, die Lichter (All the Lights - Stories), Gewalten: Ein Tagebuch (Acts of Violence, publ. in English by And Other Stories 2011), and the novel Im Stein (Bricks and Mortar, publ. in English by Fizcarraldo Editions 2016). His work has won him numerous awards, including the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair; Im Stein was shortlisted for the German Book Prize and won the Bremen Prize for Literature. In 2015, Clemens Meyer and Thomas Stuber were awarded the German Screenplay Prize for In den Gängen. Andreas Dresen’s film adaptation of Meyer’s first novel, As We Were Dreaming, competed in the 2015 Berlinale. 2017 S. Fischer published his collection of stories Die stillen Trabanten (Silent Satellites).

Katja Petrowskaja / Germany

Katja Petrowskaja was born in 1970 in Kiev. She studied Russian Philology and Semiotics at the University of Tartu, Estonia, and received her PhD in Literature at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. Since 1999, she has lived in Berlin. She contributed to the "Radio Liberty" and "Deutsche Welle" (Russian departments), wrote for German and Swiss newspapers like TAZ, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and since 2011 has been a columnist for the culture section in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. For the same newspaper she has been writing on photography since 2015. “Maybe Esther” (Suhrkamp 2014) is Petrowskaja's first book. It was translated into 20 languages and in 2013 won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize as well as many other prestigious awards.

Dimitris Lyacos /Greece / Italy

Dimitris Lyacos was born and raised in Athens. He is the author of the Poena Damni trilogy (Z213: EXIT, With The People From The Bridge, The First Death). The work, in its current form, developed as a work in progress over the course of thirty years with subsequent editions and excerpts appearing in journals around the world, as well as in dialogue with a diverse range of sister projects it inspired — drama, contemporary dance, video art, sculpture installations, photography, opera and contemporary music. So far translated into six major languages and performed worldwide, Poena Damni belongs to the canon of postmodern texts published in the new millennium while being, at the same time, the most widely acclaimed and best-selling title of contemporary Greek literature in English translation. A second revised edition of Z213: EXIT appeared in autumn 2016 and a new edition of The First Death is due to appear in the coming months.

Amir Or/Israel

Amir Or, a leading Israeli poet, was born in Tel Aviv in 1956. the author of 12 volumes of poetry in Hebrew, the latest of which are Loot – selected poetry 1977-2013 (2013) and Wings (2015). His poems have been published in more than 40 languages, and in 22 books in Europe, Asia and America. He is the recipient of several national and international poetry prizes, among them the Levi Eshkol Prime Minister’s Prize, a Fulbright Award for Writers, Bernstein Prize, Oeneumi Poetry Prize 2010, the Stephan Mitrov Ljubisha international literary award 2014 and the Atlas of Lyrics prize 2016. Or studied philosophy and comparative religion at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he later lectured on Ancient Greek Religion. He has taught poetry in universities in Israel, the UK, and Japan. Or is the founder of the Helicon Poetry Society and the Hebrew-Arabic Helicon Poetry School. He is editor of the poetry books series Catuv and national editor for the international poetry magazine Atlas.

Diti Ronen / Israel

Diti Ronen is an Israeli poet and an editor of poetry books  born in Tel Aviv. Diti Ronen is a lecturer of Arts, Theatre and Cultural Policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she teaches postgraduate students. She is the former head of Cultural Policy, Theatre and Literature Departments in the Israeli Ministry of Culture. Diti Ronen has published six full length poetry books, as well as numerous essays and articles. Her poetry is translated into many languages and is published in literary magazines and anthologies worldwide. Ronen performs her poetry on different stages in Israel and around the world. She was awarded three International poetry awards, including the Terra Poetica Award, and two national awards plus prizes of honors, poetry residencies and scholarships. Her most recent poetry book, "Quand la maison revient" (French, 50pp), was published in France on March 2016 by the "Levant" publishing house. Her most recent poetry book published in Hebrew, "The return of the house and its wanderings" (Hebrew, 215pp), was published in Israel on March 2016 by the "Ha'Kibboutz Ha'Meuhad" publishing house. The book was awarded soon after it was published by the Kugel Literary Award. 

Ibrahim Al-Koni / Libya / Spain

The Libyan Tuareg novelist and short story writer Ibrahim al-Koni  is one of the most original and innovative authors writing in Arabic. Born in 1948 in Fezzan Region, near the Libyan desert city of Gadames, Ibrahim al-Koni was brought up on the tradition of the Tuareg, popularly known as "the veiled men" or "the blue men." Mythological elements, spiritual quest and existential questions mingle in the writings of al-Koni who has been hailed as magical realist, Sufi fabulist and poetic novelist. He spent his childhood in the desert and learned to read and write Arabic when he was twelve. Al-Koni studied comparative literature at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow and then worked as a journalist and editor at a cultural magazine in Moscow and Warsaw, before moving to Switzerland. He has won numerous awards and important literary prizes - including the Mohamed Zefzaf Prize for the Arabic Novel in 2005 and the 2008 Sheikh Zayed Award for Literature - and his many books have been translated into 35 languages. In 2015, Al-Koni was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. His novel Gold Dust (first published in Arabic in 1990 as al-Tibr) appeared in Georgian in 2016. Another novel “The Bleeding of the Stone” was published in Georgian in 2107.

Tomas Venclova / Lithuania / USA

Tomas Venclova was born in Klaipeda, Lithuenia in 1937. Today he’s a naturalized United States citizen. Tomas is a professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Yale University. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, essays, literary biography, and conversation. His work has been translated into twenty languages. Tomas Venclova was a participant in the Lithuanian and Soviet dissident movement, founding member of the Lithuanian Helsinki group (1976). He stripped of the Soviet citizenship in 1977 and concurrently became a member of the International P.E.N. Club. Honors and Awards received by the author include: International literary prize Vilenica (1990); Lithuanian National Prize, (2000); Qinhai Poetry Prize, China (2011); Petrarca poetry prize (Germany), (2014). Tomas Venclova is the author of numerous publications of poetry and essays (around 60 books in various languages including Lithuanian, English, German, Italian, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Serbian, Albanian, Chinese).

Dariusz Tomasz Lebioda/ Poland

Dariusz Tomasz Lebioda was born in 1958 in Bydgoszcz. He has been researching Polish literature of XIX and XX century, but before he had worked as a lifeguard, farm-hand, tradesman and gas pressure deliverer. He trained martial arts and was a prisoner of totalitarian system. In 1994 he received Ph. D. in Polish literature at Gdansk (Danzing) University. Lebioda received many Polish literary prizes: Andrzej Bursa’s Award, Stanisław Wyspiański’s Award, Klemens Janicki’s Award and Buno’s Award. He is the most famous poet of the New Generation – authors born beetween 1950 and 1960. He was published almost 40 books – poetry, biographies, historical studies to essays and scientific monograph. 12 out of his publications are poetic volumes. His poems can be found in all the most important Polish anthologies. His works has been translated into many languages – English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew and many more. He published his poems and articles on poetry in Greece, Arabic countries, Croatia, Switzerland, Lithuania and Japan. His research mostly covers Polish authors but he also devoted some essays and articles to Anglo-American writers – among them Faulkner, Singer, Caldwell, Malamud, Murdoch, Golding.

Sergey Gandlevsky / Russia

Sergey Gandlevsky, Russian poet and writer was born in 1952, in the family of servants. He graduated Moscow State University in 1977, faculty of philology. In 70s Sergey was a member of poetic group “Moskovskoe Vremja” with Aleksandr Soprovsky, Aleksey Tsvetkov and Bakhit Kenzheev. He worked as a night security guard, gardener, scene worker, guide and Russian language school teacher. He has taken part in several expeditions from Pamir to Chukotka. His poems used to be published in emigrant editions before “Perestroika”. First big “patriotic” publication appeared in “Literaturnaia Gruzija” in the 80s, for which he is grateful to the editor of the magazine back at that time – Giorgi Margvelashvili. Up until today, he has books published 20 books including poetry, prose, essay volumes and translations. He has received several important awards: Little Booker Prize (1996), Anti-Booker (1996),  Moskovskii Schet (2009), Kievskie Lavry (2009), Russian National "Poet" Prize (2010). Sergey has been the participant of many literary festivals in Austria, England, Germany, Georgia, Italy, The Netherlands, Ukraine, Lithuania, Turkey, France, Switzerland, Croatia and Japan.

Since 1992 I have given invited lectures and readings at Yale University, Stanford University, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and many others.

Tozan Alkan / Turkey

Turkish poet Tozan Alkan was born in 1963. He has been working as a lecturer at Istanbul University for 20 years. He has translated many poets and authors from English, French and Spanish into Turkish such as Anatole France, Charles Baudelaire, Lord Byron, Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde, William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Tristan Tzara, Philippe Soupault, D.H. Lawrence, William Butler Yeats, Antonio Machado, Alfonsina Storni and Garcia Lorca. His poems have been translated into many languages. His poetry publications: Time and Mask (Donkişot Publications 2003), Early Evenings of Heart (Donkişot Publications 2005), And the Wind (Artshop Publications 2007),  Death will hit the spot (Selected Poems in English, Yasakmeyve Publications, 2009), Open Door (Islık Publicationsi 2014). He is the editor-in-chief of Turkey’s sole literary translation magazine called CN. He is a member of Turkish PEN, the Writers Syndicate of Turkey, and Turkish Authors Association.

Marianna Kiyanovska  /Ukraine

Marianna Kiyanovska is Ukrainian poet, writer, literary critic and translator. Marianna was born in 1973, in the city Zhovkva of Lviv oblast. She studied philology at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. Poet currently lives in Lviv. Her poetry volumes include: “Incarnation” (1997), “Crown of Sonnets” (1999), “Mythcreation” (2000), “Love and War” (published with a co-author Mariana Savka, 2002), “Adam’s Book” (2004), “Ordinary Language” (2005), “373” (2014) and other. She has also published a short story collection “Lane by the River” (2008). Marianna translates poetry from Polish and Russian. Her poems are translated into English, Polish, Serbian, Slovenian, Russian and Belarussian languages. She is the awardee of the Literary Award of Nestor the Chronicler (2006) and poetry festival “Kievskie Lavry” (2012).

Richard Berengarten / United Kingdom

Richard Berengarten (aka Burns, b. London 1943) studied English at Cambridge (1961–64) and Linguistics at University College London (1977–8). In 1975, he founded the international Cambridge Poetry Festival, which ran until 1985. He has lived in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Croatia and the USA, and has worked extensively in Eastern Europe and Russia. The eight volumes of his Selected Writings include: The Manager (2001); The Blue Butterfly (2006); Under Balkan Light (2008); Manual (2014); Notness (2015); and Changing, a poetic homage to the Yijing (2016). The Critical Companion to Richard Berengarten contains 34 essays from contributors in 11 countries, including Georgia. He has received the Eric Gregory Award (1972), the Keats Memorial Prize (1974), the Duncan Lawrie Prize (1982), the Yeats Club Prize (1989), the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Award (1992), the Morava Charter Prize (Serbia, 2005) and the Manada Prize (Macedonia, 2011). The Blue Butterfly provided the Veliki školski čas memorial-oratorio for Nazi massacre-victims in Kragujevac (Serbia, 2007). Formerly Arts Council of Great Britain Writer-in-Residence at the Victoria Adult Education Centre, Kent (1979-1981), Visiting Professor at the University of Notre Dame (1982), British Council Lector, Belgrade (1987-1990), Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge (2003-2005), he is a Bye-Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the English Association.

Isaac Marion / United States 

Isaac Marion grew up in the mossy depths of America's Pacific Northwest, where he worked as a heating installer, a security guard, and a visitation supervisor for foster children before publishing his debut novel in 2010. Warm Bodiesbecame a New York Times bestseller and inspired a major film adaptation. It has been translated into twenty-five languages. Isaac lives in Seattle with his cat, Watson, writing fiction and music and taking pictures of everything.

Erekle Deisadze / Georgia

Writer and Musician Erekle Deisadze was born in 1990 in Kutaisi. He graduated from Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film Georgia State University. In 2010 Erekle Published the book “Saidumlo Siroba”, followed by a severely contrasting reactions of the public. In 2012 artist founded a punk band “In 40 Kilometers”. He has taken music videos of political character. Erekle participated in a music video “System must break down”, which was a reaction to the scandal in Penitentiary system of Georgia. In 2013 he created a music project Eko & Vinda Folio. In 2013 Erekle published his second book “The Maid”, followed by “Russian Holidays” in 2016, which is about Russian-Georgian war. He has written music for the plays: “Bechavi” – staged at Royal District Theatre in 2015 and “Gatvla” (Counting Out) staged at Puppet Theatre in 2017

Nino Kharatishvili

Writers, playwright, stage director, was born in 1983 in Tbilisi. She is currently living in Hamburg (Germany) and working in the theatres of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Theatre critics consider her one of the most promising playwright and director.
NIni Haratischwili has been publishing plays and novels in the German language for more than 10 years. She is the author of the novels “Juja” (2010|), “My Gentle Twin” (2011). IN 2014 her new novel “The Eighth Life (for Brilka)” was published to a great acclaim in European countries. Haratischwili is awarded with numerous literary and theatre prizes; including the prize of the German Independent Publishers, Heidelberg Theatre festival award and many more. Her plays are successfully running in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Russia and Georgia.

Lasha Bugadze

Lasha Bugadze is a Georgian novelist and playwright. He is the author of numerous novels and plays that have been performed in many European cities. His works have been translated into Russian, Armenian, French, German, Polish and English. Bughadze focuses his critical and ironic attention on inter-generational relationships and describes situations in which people fall victim to their prejudices, rigid ideas or stereotypes. He won the Russia and Caucasus Region category of the BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition in 2007 and one of the two top prizes in 2011 for his play “The Navigator”. Bughadze is a writer and presenter of literary programmes broadcast on radio and TV by the Georgian public broadcaster.

Nestan (Nene) Kvinikadze

Georgian writer, scriptwriter and journalist Nestan (Nene) Kvinikadze has written a number of film scripts, plays, several collections of prose, and three novels. Since 2006 she has been editor-in-chief of a monthly bilingual (Georgian-English) magazine Focus. In 2012 an extract from her novel “Techno of Jaguars” was translated into German and included in the anthology of contemporary Georgian women authors.

Irma Tavelidze

Irma Tavilidze is a contemporary Georgian writer and translator.  She is the author of two books – a collection of short stories “Autobiography in French” and  “The invention of the East”. She has translated literary works of French, English and American authors including works of J. M. Coetzee and Michel Houellebecq. Since 1999 she has been a creative writer publishing short stories in various Georgian newspapers and magazines. In 2007 her first volume of stories “Autobiography in French” was published and following year the author won the TSERO (Crane) literary competition, in which the prize is awarded by readers. Irma Tavelidze’s story “Gori Fortress” appeared in Swedish translation in the the Anthology of Georgian Short Stories, published by Swedish edition house Tranan. 

Tamar Tandashvili

In 2017, Tamar Tandashvili, a clinical psychologist, published her first novel “The storm of the orange dandelion”, which landed on the shortlist of the literary prize “Litera”. At various times Tamar has worked at several LGBT and women’s rights organizations as a consulting psychotherapist. Currently, she teaches at the Tbilisi Ivane Javakhishvili and Ilia State Universities.