Ajit BARAL (fiction writer, nonfiction writer; Nepal) runs a publishing house and a bookstore in Kathmandu. He has published Interviews Across Time and Space (2007), a collection of conversations with international writers, and of The Lazy Conman and Other Stories: Folktales from Nepal (2009); he is also the co-editor of the short story collection New Nepal, New Voices (2008), and a coordinator, until recently, of the literary supplement Akshar of Nagarik daily. His writings appear in national journals, international magazines and book volumes. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Kevin BLOOM (nonfiction writer; South Africa) has written for many South African and international publications, including the Guardian and Times in the U.K., The National of the UAE, and Global Brief of Canada. In broadcast media, he was contracted to CBC as a radio essayist during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and has worked as a presenter and co-writer of investigative documentaries. In 2010 his narrative nonfiction book, Ways of Staying (2009), won the South African Literary Award for literary journalism. He is currently co-writing a book entitled Whiteout: The advance of the Chinese and the twilight of the European in Africa. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Maria Sonia CRISTOFF (novelist, nonfiction writer; Argentina) teaches creative writing and Patagonian literature. Her literary pieces and criticism have been published in newspapers and magazines such as La Nación, Clarín, Página 12, Perfil and Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Noticias, Latido, TXT, Siwa, Letras Libres and Otra Parte. Cristoff is the author of the travelogue Falsa Cama [Deceptive Calm] (2005), the novella Desubicados [Misfits] (2006) and the novel Bajo influencia [Under the Influence] (2010), and the editor of three story and essay collections Patagonia (2005), Idea crónica [Chronical Idea] (2006) and Pasaje a Oriente [Passage to the Orient] (2009). She participates courtesy of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires.
Naseer HASSAN (poet, translator; Iraq) is the manager of a cultural NGO poetry forum, a producer at Free Iraq Radio, and an award-winning journalist. He has published four poetry collections [The Circle of Sundial] (1998), [Suggested Signs] (2007), [Being Here] (2008), and [Dayplaces] (2010). In addition to editing [Emily Dickinson: Selected Poems and Critical Articles] (2009), [Days of the Shore: Selections From New American Poetry 1980-2010] (2011), and [Jorge Luis Borges: 60 poems] (2011), he has several book-length translations forthcoming, including [House of the Star: Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes], and selections from Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation. Hassan's collected poems appeared in 2010 from the Arabic Publishing House in Beirut. He participates courtesy of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Lynley HOOD (nonfiction writer; New Zealand) is a scientist and independent scholar. Her nonfiction includes Sylvia! The Biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1988), which won the PEN Best First Book of Prose Award, the Goodman Fielder Wattie Award, and the New Zealand Foundation for the Blind’s Talking Book of the Year award, and A City Possessed (2001), which won the Montana Medal, the Readers’ Choice Award and the Skeptics Bravo Award. Her play The Baby Farmer (1996) has been staged, and performed on the radio. Hood was named one of The Press’s ‘Six of the Best New Zealanders’ in 2001, and one of North & South magazine’s ‘New Zealanders who made a difference’ in 2003. Her participation is provided courtesy of Creative New Zealand.
Iman HUMAYDAN (novelist, fiction writer; Lebanon) is the founder of ARRAWI, a non-profit center for marginalized youth in Lebanon. Her short stories, essays, and journalism have appeared in German, Swiss, French, and Arab newspapers and magazines. Her novels B Mithl Beit, Mithl Beirut (B as in Beirut) and Toot Barri (Wild Mulberries), have been published in Arabic, French, German, and English, followed, in 2010, by the third, Hayawat Okhra [Other Lives]. Humaydan co-wrote the screenplay for Chatti ya Deni [Here Comes The Rain], which won the first prize at the 2010 Dubai Film Festival, and edited the creative writing textbook Kitabat alkitabah (2010). Her participation is provided courtesy of the William B. Quarton Foundation.
Usha K. R. (novelist, fiction writer, editor; India) is the author of four novels: Sojourn (1998), The Chosen (2003), A Girl and a River (2007), and Monkey-man (2010), of which A Girl and a River won the Vodafone Crossword Award for Fiction, and Monkey-Man was long-listed for the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize. Her essays and short stories have been featured in magazines, newspapers, collections and anthologies, including the Katha Prize Stories Volume 5. She occasionally reviews books for the Deccan Herald and is the managing editor of IIMB Management Review, in Bangalore. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Fabienne KANOR (novelist, filmmaker; France) is the author of four novels, including Les Chiens ne font pas des chats (2008) and Anticorps (2010), as well as the children’s novel Le Jour où la mer a disparu (2008). She received the Fetkann Award for her novel D’Eaux Douces (2004), and the RFO Literary Award for Humus (2006). Kanor has also made a number of short documentaries and films, including C’est qui l’homme?, winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the Angers Film Festival in 2008. She has worked as a reporter at France 3, , Radio Nova (Paris), and International French Radio RFI. She is completing her fifth novel and a screenplay for the feature-length film Derriére le morne. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Oonya KEMPADOO (fiction writer, nonfiction writer; Grenada) has worked with UNICEF and UNAIDS in Grenada and in Trinidad. Her writing has appeared in the collections Trinidad Noir, Caribbean Dispatches, Stories From Blue Lattitudes, and the literary magazine The Bomb. Her first novel, Buxton Spice (1998), was long-listed for the Orange Prize and translated into six languages. She has just completed a screen adaptation for her second novel, Tide Running (2001). She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
LEE Hye-Kyung (fiction writer, novelist; South Korea) taught high school before making her literary debut in 1982. She is the author of the novel [A House on the Road] (1995), and the short story collections [In Front of That House] (1998) and [In The Shadow of Flowers] (2002), and [A Niche] (2006). Her work has received a number of awards, including the 1995 Today's Writer Award, the 1998 Hankook Ilbo Literature Prize, and the Dongin Literature Prize for the story collection [A Niche]. In 2004, [A House on the Road] was honored with Literaturpreis in Germany. She participates courtesy of the Korea Literature Translation Institute (KLTI).
Dory MANOR (poet, editor; Israel) is a poetry and translation lecturer at universities in Tel Aviv, the co-host of a radio talk show, the editor-in-chief of Sal Tarbut Artzi Publishers, and editor-in-chief of הו! [Oh!] literary journal. The recipient of several literary prizes, Manor has translated Baudelaire, Flaubert, Descartes, Rimbaud, Melville, Twain, Verne, and others; his translations of Mallarmé and Valéry are forthcoming in 2011. His collaborative efforts include a musical interpretation of Baudelaire's poetry, and an operatic libretto ואומגה אלפא [Alpha and Omega], staged in 2001. Manor has published two collections of poetry, מיעוט [Minority] (2001) and בריטון [Baritone] (2005). His collected works will be published in 2011.
Kgebetli MOELE (novelist, fiction writer; South Africa) has been a theatre producer and creative writing teacher. His short stories have appeared in the anthology Sun Tropes: Sun City and (post-)Apartheid Culture in South Africa and in the Italian magazine Internazionale. His Room 207 won the 2007 Herman Charles Bosman Debut Novel Award and the University of Johannesburg Debut Novel Award. He received the 2010 South African Literary Award for his second novel, The Book of the Dead. He is currently at work on three novels, including Nature of Life and Behind the Great Man. He participates courtesy of the U.S. Embassy in Cape Town.
Jamyang NORBU (novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer; Tibet) is an activist and a blogger for Shadow Tibet, Rangzen.net and Huffington Post. He is also the author of three essay collections on Tibetan politics and culture, Illusion and Reality, Shadow Tibet and Buying the Dragon's Teeth. His 1999 novel The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes won India's Crossword Book Award, and has appeared in over a dozen languages. While directing the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharamshala, Norbu wrote plays as well as a traditional Tibetan opera libretto; he is the editor of, and contributor to, the volume Performing Traditions of Tibet. A founding director of the Tibetan Centre for Advanced Studies (the Amnye Machen Institute), Norbu has edited the Institute's journal of history and culture, Lungta, and its newspaper Mangtso. He presently lives in Monteagle, TN. His residency is sponsored by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.
Milena ODA Onetti (fiction writer, playwright, translator; Germany) was born in Czechoslovakia and now works in Berlin as an editor, translator and journalist for Radio WDR, Der Freitag, Prager Zeitung, Literární noviny, and others. Her play Mehr als Meer was staged at the Central European Theatre Festival and at the 2009 Forum of Independent Theatre Groups in Alexandria. Oda is the recipient of the 2007 Marguerite d'Or in Vienna, and was nominated for the 2007 Ingeborg-Bachmann award. Her work, in German, Czech, and English, has been featured in the Entdeckungen 2. Cd/DVD Anthology, Ostragehege, Labyrint Revue, Lauter Niemand, Volltext, and Contact. In 2010 she published her first novel, Nennen Sie mich Diener [Please Call Me Servant]. She participates courtesy of the Max Kade Foundation.
PARK Chan Soon (fiction writer, translator; South Korea) made her literary debut in 2006 after working as a film translator for dubbing and subtitling for thirty years, with over fifty documentaries and hundreds of feature films to her credit. She has also worked as a subtitler for film festivals, and translated a number of books for adults and children. She is the author of [Whisperings of a Translator – Movie Translation, Aesthetics of Communication] (2005); her first collection of short stories, [The Garden of Balhae] came out in 2009. She is a professor of English Literature at Seoul Women's University. Her participation is made possible by Arts Council Korea.
Tommi PARKKO (poet, nonfiction writer; Finland) has taught creative writing at universities and workshops across his native Finland. Parkko is the founder of the poetry association Nihil Interit, and has edited a number of poetry collections. His own work has been translated into Swedish, Russian, Estonian, Hebrew, and Lithuanian. He is the author of third poetry collections, Lyhyt Muisti, Meri [Short Memory, Sea] (1997) and Sileäksi Puhuttu [Smooth Talk] (2004). His third collection, Pelikaani [Pelican], is due out in August of 2011. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Alexandra PETROVA (poet, fiction writer; Russia/Italy) was born in Russia, lived in Jerusalem and currently resides in Rome. She is the author of three collections of poetry Линия Отрыва [Point of Detachment] (1994), Вид на жительство [Residence Permit] (2000), and Только деревья [Just the Trees] (2008). Her poems have appeared in Russian magazines: Znamia, Zvezda, and Zerkalo, in English in Literary Revue, Modern Poetry in Translation, Drunken Boat, Guernica, and many more. She has also written a play "Пастухи Долли" [Dolly's Shepherds, A Philosophical Play]. She was short listed for the Andrej Belyj award (2001, 2007) and she has received awards the "Migrante" European Poetry meeting (2006), Belgrade's Festival of Poetry Trceg TRG (2008), and the Torino Festival's Sixth Annual National Mother Language Literary Competition (2011). She is currently at work on her first novel. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
PHAN Hon Nhien (novelist, fiction writer; Vietnam) is the managing editor at SinhVien Vietnam magazine. The author of ten collections of short stories and seven novels, Phuong has published six books since 2009: the novels [Cold Eyes], [The Joker], [Azoth Necklace], and the short story collections [The Rain Gal], [A Dangerous Emotion], and [Left Wing], which won the 2010 Ho Chi Minh Writers Association Award. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Ogochukwu PROMISE (fiction writer, poet, essayist, playwright; Nigeria) is the founder and coordinator of the Lumina Foundation which instituted the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa; she also initiated the Get Africa Reading Project and runs a mobile library. Ogochukwu edits and publishes the literary magazine The Lumina, and the magazine Children's Classic. An author of 16 novels, six collections of poetry, two short story collections, four plays, two essay collections, thirty children's books, and editor of four literary collections, she has received seven Association of Nigerian Authors awards for her poetry and fiction. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Pilar QUINTANA (novelist, fiction writer; Colombia) is the author of three novels, including Cosquillas en la lengua [Tickles in the Tongue] and Conspiración iguana [Iguana Conspiracy]; an excerpt from Coleccionistas de polvos raros [Collectors of Weird Screws] appeared in em>Gargoyle in 2011. Her short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies across Latin America, and in Spain, and Germany. In 2007, the Hay Festival Bogotá named Quintana among the 39 most important Latin American writers under the age of 39. In 2010, she received the La Mar de Letras award.Her blog is "La Manigua." Her participation is courtesy of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá.
Nell REGAN (poet; Ireland) is a writer and educator. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies, including the Russian Journal of Contemporary Writing from Ireland, The Florida Review, Poetry Daily, Cyphers, and Breaking the Skin, 21st Century Irish Writing. Her three collections of poetry include Preparing for Spring (2007) shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex New Writing, Strong, and Patrick Kavanagh Awards, and Bound for Home (2011); a fourth volume is due out in 2012. Her biography of Helena Molony appeared in Female Activists: Irish Women and Change, 1900-60. She participates courtesy of The Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Irish Fulbright Commission.
Eugenia RICO (novelist; Spain) is the founder of the magazine Multiversidad. Her first novel Los amantes tristes [The Sad Lovers] (2000), was followed in 2002 by the Azorín Award- winning La muerte blanca [White Death], and La edad secreta [The Secret Age] in 2004. Her 2006 novel El otoño aleman [The German Autumn] won the Ateneo de Sevilla Award for Novel, and was her first work dedicated to the cycle of the Four Elements (Water); her latest work is Aunque seamos malditas [Even Though We Are Damned] (2008). Her articles and essays have been featured in Revista de Occidente, El País and El Mundo, and won the 2005 Spirituality Award and a UNICEF award. She is a recipient of the Valle-Inclán Fellowship from the Real Academia de España in Rome. Her participation is privately funded.
Josephine ROWE (fiction writer, poet; Australia) has worked variously as a lecturer, editor and curator of literary events. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best Australian Poems (2005, 2006 & 2010), Best Australian Stories (2010), Overland, ABR and The Griffith Review, and her short story collection How a Moth Becomes a Boat was published in 2010. Her stories have been made into short films and performance pieces, and broadcast on Radio National's The Book Show and Poetica. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Moshe SAKAL (novelist, fiction writer; Israel) is the author of a collection of short stories, התרחיש [The Scenario] and three novels (1997), האי אני [The Not-I] (2002), אחייך אליך, אחייך [I Smile at You] (2007), and יולנדה [Yolanda] (2011). He directs literary projects for the Israel Center for Books and Libraries in Tel Aviv, is a contributing editor at the literary journal הו! [Oh!], edits a culture blog (blog.moshesakal.com/), and regularly reviews books in Haaretz Daily newspaper. His English site: www.moshesakal.com His participation is made possible by the Fulbright Foundation of Israel.
Bina SHAH (novelist, fiction writer; Pakistan) is a Karachi-based journalist and fiction writer, and has taught writing at the university level. She is the author of two short story collections, Animal Medicine (1999) and Blessings (2007), and four novels: Where They Dream in Blue (2001), The 786 Cybercafe (2004), Slum Child (2009), and A Season For Martyrs (2010). Her work has been translated into Urdu, Spanish, and Italian. She has written extensively for international and Pakistani newspapers, including The Independent, The International Herald Tribune, Dawn, Libas, The Friday Times, and (online) at Chowk and Granta magazine. Her participation is provided courtesy of the U.S. Consulate General in Karachi.
Hind SHOUFANI (poet, filmmaker; Jordan) was born to Palestinian parents in Lebanon and lives in Dubai. Shoufani has made a number of short films and documentaries, and is now at work on the documentary Journey in Migration (2011) and the feature-length This War on Love. She has been a film instructor in Jordan and Lebanon, and written on the arts for the Beirut newspapers The Daily Star and The Guide. The author of two volumes of poetry, More Light Than Death Could Bear (2007) and Inkstains on the Edge of Light (2010), she is also the founder of The Poeticians, a group that hosts multilingual poetry and spoken word events in Amman, Beirut and Dubai. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Zoë STRACHAN (novelist, playwright; Scotland) teaches creative writing at the University of Glasgow, and is the author of the novels Negative Space (2002), Spin Cycle (2004) and Ever Fallen in Love (2011). Her work has appeared in the Sunday Herald, Bamberger Punkt 14 (Germany), Bordercrossing Berlin, The Big Issue, The Antigonish Review, The Scotsman Magazine, Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature's Explorer magazine, in the anthologies SHIFTS, The Research Club, Latitute, and New Writing 15, on BBC Radio and in other radio programs. The author of the plays Panic Patterns and Old Girls and the short opera Sublimation, she is at work on an adaptation of Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea for Scottish Opera's 2012 season. She has also collaborated on conceptual art, sound, and prose pieces. Her website is www.zoestrachan.com. She participates courtesy of the British Council.
SU Wei-chen 苏伟贞 (fiction writer, nonfiction writer, Taiwan) has served as editor-in-chief of the Weekly Reader News, and is now a professor of Chinese literature at National Cheng Kung University. Su is the author of more than a dozen volumes of fiction and nonfiction, including the novels紅顏已老 [The faded years of Youth] (1981), 舊愛 [Old Love] (1985), 離家出走 [Flying from Home] (1987), 離開同方 [To Leave the Village Tong-Fang] (1990), 沉默之島 [The Island of Silence] (1994), 魔術時刻 [The Magic Hours] (2002), and 時光隊伍 [The Procession in Time] (2006), as well as of the critical and essay volumes單人旅行 [The Journey of Solitude] (1999) and 租書店的女兒 [The Memories of Books] (2010). Her academic publications are 張愛玲香港時期小說研究 [Eileen Chang's Hong Kong Period Novels] (2002) and台灣張派作家世代論 [The Influence of Eileen Chang and Her Followers in Taiwan] (2006). She is the recipient of the United Daily News Prize for the Novelette, and the China Times Million Dollar Literary Prize for the Novel. Her participation is made possible by the Council for Cultural Affairs in Taiwan.
Francisco SUNIAGA (novelist, fiction writer, nonfiction writer; Venezuela) was a lawyer and university instructor of International Politics and Law, and served in the United Nations transitory administration of East Timor, before publishing his first work of fiction, and taking on the editorship of Exxito, a monthly economics and politics magazine. He is the author of novels La otraisla [The Other Island] (2005), also translated into German, and El pasajero de Truman [Truman's Passenger] (2008), a volume of nonfiction, Pequeños, talentosos y esforzados [Little, Talented and Hardworking] (2009) and the short story collection Margarita infant [Infant Margarita] (2010). He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Jeremy TIANG (fiction writer, playwright, translator; Singapore) has acted in nearly 30 stage, television and film productions. His plays Polyglottalstop (2008), A Dream of Red Pavilions (2008), and godshaped hole (2010) were staged in London, and Operation Opera (2003) in Singapore. His story "Trondheim" won the NAC Golden Point Award. He has led theatre and creative writing workshops, translated plays from the Chinese, and contributed film, theatre, and book reviews to The Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Straits Times, The Arts Magazine, and The Flying Inkpot. Tiang's participation is made possible by a grant from the Singapore National Arts Council.
Joel TOLEDO (poet, fiction writer, nonfiction writer; Philippines) is the literary editor at The Philippine Free Press and a professor of literature at Miriam College. His reviews and columns have been featured in newspapers and magazines including The Philippine Star and The Manila Times; his creative work has appeared, among other places, in Rogue Poetry Review, Washington Square, Sunday Times Magazine, and P.E.N. 50th Anniversary Anthology of Poetry in English. He is the author of four books of poetry, including Chiaroscuro (2008) and The Long Lost Startle (2009), the children's book Pedro and the Lifeforce (1997), and of the screenplays for Todo Todo Teros and Philippine Bliss, screened at the 2007 Rotterdam Film Festival. Among his awards is the 2005 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature for the collection What Little I Know of Luminosity, while Chiaroscuro was a finalist for the 2008 Philippines National Book Award for Poetry. A fifth poetry collection is due out this year. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Dorothy TSE 謝曉虹 (fiction writer; Hong Kong) teaches in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she is also completing her PhD, and is a co-founder of the literary magazine Fleurs des Lettres. Her columns have been featured in the newspapers Ming Pao and Fleurs des Lettres, a Literary Magazine. Tse is the author of the short-story collection 好黑 [So Black] (2003), which won the 8th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature. Her fiction has also been awarded prizes at the 15th Unitas New Fiction Writers' Awards, among others. She participates thanks to a grant from The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation in Hong Kong.
Marvin VICTOR (fiction writer, filmmaker; Haiti) has worked on a number of documentaries, shorts and feature-length films, including the 2009 adaptation of Kathy Acker's novel Kathy Goes To Haiti, and taught creative writing courses for Fondation Culture Création. In 2011 he has published the novel Corps mêlés (Gallimard, Paris), and his short fiction has been included in the collection Hasdf Haiti Noir; earlier, his articles have appeared in the magazine Conjonction. He is the recipient of the 2008 Young Francophone Writers Award and the 2011 Grand Prix du Roman de la Société des Gens de Lettres. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Louise WELSH (novelist, playwright, essayist; Scotland) is the author of the novels The Cutting Room (2002), Tamburlaine Must Die (2004), The Bullet Trick (2006) and Naming the Bones (2010). A recipient of numerous awards, among them the Saltire First Book Award, Spirit of Scotland Writing Award and City of Glasgow Lord Provost's Award for Literature, she was included in Waterstone's 2007 list of Twenty-five Authors for the Future. Her essays and articles have appeared in The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, BBC Online, The Sunday Times, on the stage and on the radio; her work is translated into twenty languages. She frequently presents for BBC Radio. Her participation is privately funded.
Cho Tu ZAW (novelist, filmmaker, poet, essayist, activist; Myanmar)after years of political organizing, has more than twenty screenwriting and directing credits, including [Another Lonely World] (2010), [The Lost] (2011) and, most recently, [Let's Make A Dialogue on Love] (2011). He is the author of the novels, [Some Used to Hate] (2006] and [Once Upon a Time in Ganges] (2010); his poems and articles have been featured in a number of magazines.
ZHANG Yueran / 张悦然 (novelist, editor; China) has published the short story collections Sunflower Got Lost in 1890 (2003) and Ten Tales of Love (2004), and three novels: Cherry's Distance (2004), The Narcissus has Gone Riding a Carp (2005) and Bird Under Oath (2006), named the best saga novel on the 2006 Chinese Novel Ranking List. Since 2008 she has been the editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Newriting, which anthologizes the best of belles-lettres magazines in China. A recipient of a number of awards, among them the Most Promising Talent Prize in Chinese Press (2005), the Spring Literature Prize (2006) and the Mao-Tai Cup People's Literature Prize (2008), she is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Chinese Literature at Beijing University. Her participation is privately funded.
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