Ada d’Adamo
Winner of the Strega Prize 2023
Ada d’Adamo was an essayist and poet from Italy. After giving birth to her disabled daughter Aria, d’Adamo became an advocate for people with disabilities and for interabled families.
While working on a memoir for her daughter, she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. She passed away on the 1st of April 2023. Three months later her memoir, Gravity, won the Strega Prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award.
Photo copyright belongs to the estate of Ada d'Adamo.
Maria Borrély
Maria Borrély was a French novelist born in 1890 in Marseille. Borrély's literary talent blossomed within an artist group that included Jean Giono, Thévenet, Gabriel Péri, Édouard Peysson and Paul Maure, which experienced a brief but intense flourishing in Haute-Provence during the 1930s.
Sous le Vent, the first of four novels writtem by Borrély, was first published in 1930 on the recommendation of André Gide. Borrély passed away in Digne, France in 1963.
Photo copyright belongs to Paulette Borrély.
Pedro Carmona-Alvarez
Pedro Carmona-Alvarez is a Norwegian novelist and poet of Chilean descent. As a child he moved to Norway with his family as refugees. In his novels he writes about the challenges that immigrants face, as well as universal themes of love and grief.
First published in 1997, Carmona-Alvarez has since gone on to win the Cappelen Damm prize 2004, and be longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2017.
Photo copyright belongs to Eva Lene Gilje Østensen.
Liliana Colanzi
Liliana Colanzi is a Bolivian writer, a Latin American Literature teacher at Cornell University and founder of Dum Dum Publishing House. Her publications are known for their dystopian and innovative explorations of South America and have been translated into several languages. Colanzi was named among the best Latin American writers under 40.
Colanzi has published three short story collections: Vacaciones permanentes, Nuestro mundo muerto and Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro.
Photo copyright belongs to Lourdes Plata.
Reem Ghanayem
Reem Ghanayem is a Palestinian poet, translator and researcher of Arabic and English literature. Her translations have appeared in multiple Arabic magazines. She is currently living in Israel.
As a result of the genocide in Gaza, Ghanayem has compiled and translated the wills and testaments of a dozen Palestinian writers to criticise the injustice and commemorate the memory of the Palestinian people.
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Helle Helle
Helle Helle Announcement
Nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2009, 2015, 2019, and 2024
Helle Helle is a graduate of the Danish Academy of Creative Writing and the author of a number of novels, as well as two collections of short stories. She is one of Scandinavia’s most original writers, with a career spanning three decades, from her debut Example of Life (1993) to her most recent novel, Hafni Says, published to rave reviews in 2023. Her books have been translated into 22 languages.
Photo copyright belongs to Mikkel Carl.
Antonella Lattanzi
Nominated for the Strega Prize 2023
Antonella Lattanzi is a Italian writer and screenwriter currently living in Rome. Lattanzi is known for her compelling and psychological books. They are often inspired by her own life and explore motherhood, guilt and betrayal.
Her books have been translated in several languages. Lattanzi has published five books: Devozione, Prima che tu mi tradisca, Una storia nera, Questo giorno che incombe and Cose che non si raccontano.
Photo copyright belongs to Cristiano Gerbino.
Kathrine Nedrejord
Winner of the Brage Prize 2024
Kathrine Nedrejord is a Sámi-Norwegian author and playwright, who grew up in the North of Norway and currently lives in Paris, France. From winning poetry awards as a teenager, to receiving a playwright residency at the Norwegian National Theatre in 2018, Nedrejord is an experienced writer across all genres. She has written and published five adult fiction novels and six young adult and children’s books, that center around themes prevalent in her own life.
Photo copyright belongs to Farein Rudjord.
Marina Perezagua
Born and raised in Spain, Perezagua currently resides in New York as a Distinguished Professor in Residence at New York University. She writes both short story collections and novels, and her writing has been published in 11 different languages. Her most well known translation, Story of H, received rave reviews from Vanity Fair and Forges.
Photo copyright belongs to Lisbeth Salas.
Sine Plambech
Winner of the Gyldendal Non-Fiction Award 2024
Sine Plambech is a Danish anthropologist, award-winning film director and author. She is Senior Researcher PhD at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen and Associated Lecturer at the University of Copenhagen. Her main area of research is in the field of global migration, gender, inequality, trafficking and the sex industry.
She has held Guest professorships at Yale University and London School of Economics. Plambech is part of the ‘Gender, Justice, and Neoliberal Transformations Research Network’ at Columbia University, and heads the project ‘Women on the Move’ with Open Society Foundations.
Photo copyright belongs to Marie Hald.
Anne Rabe
Finalist for the German Book Prize 2023
Anne Rabe is a German writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. As a writer and essayist, Rabe’s work explores her personal experience and the collective experience of living in East Germany and the aftermath of German Reunification. As such, Rabe has a significant role in the collective effort to reconcile East Germany’s past and present.
The Possibility of Happiness is Rabe’s debut novel. The novel explores experiences of violence and generational trauma in the GDR.
Photo copyright belongs to Annette Hauschild.
Marta Sanz
Marta Sanz is one of the most widely read and acclaimed contemporary authors in Spain. An award-winning novelist, poet and essayist, Sanz has written fifteen novels and four collections of poetry, as well as contributing to edited anthologies and Spanish media publications like El Pais and El Mundo.
Many of her novels have won prestigious prizes: Susana y los viejos (2006) was nominated for the Premio Nadal; Daniela Astor y la caja negra (2013) won the Premio Juan Tigre and the Premio Calamo; Farándula (2015) was awarded the Herralde Prize. Four of her books were included in the 100 best books of the century according to El País.
Photo copyright belongs to Maria Rapela.
Atsushi Sato
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize 2023
Atsushi Sato is a novelist and bookstore clerk, living in his hometown of Sendai, Japan. Growing up a city impacted the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Sato’s writing is heavily influenced by natural disaster and climate change. Since his 2017 win of the Shincho New Writers Award, Sato has risen in popularity. He has published three novels, all of which have received accolades.
Copyright belongs to Shinchosha.
Jake Skeets
Winner of the National Poetry Series 2018
Jake Skeets is a Dine poet, novelist and essayist of Navajo Nation. His essays have been published by various magazines and journals including The New York Times. He is currently working on an essay collection as well as a debut novel.
Skeets writes about his indigenous heritage, and other subject matter around his identity, such as queerness, substance abuse, loss and grief. His second collection Horses, about the impact of climate change and industrialisation on Navajo land, is due in spring 2026.
Photo copyright belongs to Deanna Dent.
Veronica Skotnes
Veronica Skotnes was born in Norway in 1998. Aged seventeen she was drawn to the ocean, and began her journey in the North Sea. Since then, winds and currents have brought her north of the Arctic Circle, where she mans her own sailboat. For the past five years, she has sailed and lived on this boat along the coast of Finnmark.
Alongside sailing, Skotnes shares her experiences at sea with nearly hundred and fifty thousand followers on social media. North of the Winter Sun is Skotnes’ debut publication and has received rave reviews.
Photo copyright belongs to Veronica Skotnes.
Ilona Wiśniewska
Winner of the Grand Press Award for Reportage Book of the Year 2023
Ilona Wiśniewska is a Polish reporter, photographer and author. Currently living in the Norwegian Arctic, Wiśniewska draws inspiration from the polar regions of the world and writes about the lives and experiences of the peoples from the Arctic. Wiśniewska was named a laureate of the Golden Owl. Wiśniewska has published one children's book, and four non-fiction books that document her various journeys to Greenland and to the Norwegian island Svalbard.
Photo copyright belongs to Birger Amundsen.
Grace Yee
Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature 2024