Poets

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy (born in Glasgow, 1955, in a family of Irish descent) is one of the most famous poetic names in Great Britain. Alongside being highly valued and esteemed in academic circles, she is a favorite of the broader audience too. An important detail towards this statement is the fact that her poetry has already been included as part of the school reading lists in national curriculums at universities and schools alike. Starting with her first, provocatively titled book “Standing Female Nude” (published in the middle of the 80s), Carol Ann Duffy had managed to garner a broad spectrum of readers, but also the undisputable support from literary critics, who recognized her as “an outstanding, new voice of poetry”. Since her debut book, nearly all new poetry publications by Duffy have been awarded with the most prestigious national and international recognitions (including the prestigious T. S. Eliot poetry prize, awarded for her collection Rapture (2005), making her the first female author in history to have received this prize), followed by the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the PEN/Pinter Prize, etc.), which is an ample testimony to the unequivocal reputation of her poetry among the demanding, critical public. For the first time in the 400-year-old tradition of this recognition, in 2009, Duffy was the first female poet to hold the post of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. She is the author of nearly 50 books, the latest being: Sincerity (2019), Frost Fair (2019). Besides being the recipient of numerous important international literary awards, Carol Ann Duffy has been awarded high honors, one of the highest is being named as “Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire” in 2015.

Lidija Dimkovska

Lidija Dimkovska was born in 1971 in Skopje, Macedonia. She is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator. She took Ph.D. degree in Romanian literature at University of Bucharest, Romania. She worked as lecturer of Macedonian language and literature at the Faculty of Foreign languages and literatures, University of Bucharest, Romania. She has published several books of poetry which have been awarded both national and international awards, the latests being Hubert Burda Award for Eastern European Poetry. Her latest book of poetry is entitled pH Neutral for Life and Death (2009). She published her first novel Hidden Camera in 2004 and for it she received the award of the Writers’ Association of Macedonia for the best novel of the year. It has been translated in Slovenian (2006) and Slovakian (2007). Her poems have been translated and published in more than 20 languages all around the world. She has participated at numerous international literary festivals and residencies. Currenty, she lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia as a free-lance writer and translator of Romanian and Slovenian literature in Macedonian.

Tihomir Janchovski

Tihomir Janchovski, born in 1967, a poet from Skopje. He has published 10 books of poetry and three prose works: a novel, a journal and a collection of columns. His latest poetry collection “Some time ago” was published this year. The second part of the collection “Unstable Ages” will be published soon. He lives and works in Skopje and Skopska Crna Gora. For himself, he says that he “writes the same book all the time and that the details of the biography are unimportant, but the works of an author are what matters. They tell you everything”.

Thanos Gogos

Thanos Gogos was born in Larissa in 1985. He is the founder of Thraka publishing house and literary magazine, coordinator of the international project Ulysses Shelter and co-founder and director of the Thessalian Poetry Festival. He has published 3 poetry collections: Frontier Playground (Farfulas, 2013), Glasgow (Thraka, 2014/ Sandorf 2020), and Dakar (Melani, 2020). His poems have been published in various literary magazines and have been translated in 10 languages. In 2015, he participated in the 2nd Young Writers Festival at the International Book Fair of Thessaloniki, organized by the Hellenic Foundation of Culture. His works appeared in the New Voices of Greece anthology, which was published by Hellenic Foundation of Culture and presented in the 67th Frankfurt Book Fair. He is a member of the Versopolis network and Poets' Circle.

Manjola Nasi

Manjola Nasi (1982) is a Tirana-based Albanian poet and translator, winner of Crystal Vilenica 2019 Award. A Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program alumna, she holds a PhD in literature from the University of Tirana, where she has been teaching for over a decade. She has translated a series of important works from English into Albanian. Her poems have been awarded national and international prizes. She published her first collection, Sonnet of Autumn in 2002 upon winning a literary competition. In 2017 she was awarded a prize by the Albanian Ministry of Culture, which led to the 2018 publication of her second collection of poems, A Journey and a Half, greeted with critical acclaim. In 2019 she was a guest at the Marko Marulić writers’ residency program in the city of Split, Croatia and she has been invited to a month-long Reading Balkans Residency in Novo Mesto, Slovenia in 2021. Her new collection of poems is scheduled to come out later this year. Selections of her works have appeared in anthologies and literary journals in English, Italian, Slovenian, Greek, etc.

Roman Kissiov

Roman Kissiov was born in 1962 in the town of Kazanlak, Bulgaria. Poet, translator of poetry, artist. He studied at the Secondary School of Arts in his hometown and graduated in painting from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia. Roman Kissiov lives and works in Sofia. Poems by Roman Kissiov have been published in almost all Bulgarian literary editions, they have been broadcast over the Bulgarian National Television and the Bulgarian National Radio. His works have been included in poetry anthologies in Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Armenia, Jordan, India, and in the international anthology of English POETS FOR WORLD PEACE (Switzerland, Canada, 2011). His poems have been translated and published in English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Greek, Turkish, Romanian, Russian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Albanian, Armenian, Georgian, Arabian, Chinese, Bengali, and other. He has taken part in many international poetry festivals. Poetry books: The Doors of Heaven (1995), The Shadow of the Flight (2000), Pilgrim of the Light (2003), Cryptus (2004), Voices (2009), The Garden of the Secrets (2014), Eggs of phoenix (2014), The Mystic Rose (selected poems, 2016). In other languages: Hodočasnik svjetla (Pilgrim of the Light, 2008) – in Croatian, Slovoto Pastir (The Shepherd Word, 2010) – in Macedonian, কবিতা, Poems (2013) – in Bengali (Kolkata, India), Lumea cuvintelor (The World of Words, 2014) – in Romanian, ՀԱՄԲԱՐՁՈՒՄ. Възнесение. Вознесение (Ascension, 2014), in Armenian, Bulgarian and Russian, Jajca od feniks (Eggs of phoenix, 2016) – e-book, in Macedonian, Mistichnata roza (The Mystic Rose, 2019) – in Macedonian.

Dragoslav Dedović

Dragoslav Dedović was born in 1963, Zemun. He grew up in Kalesija, and finished his high school education in Tuzla. After graduating Journalism in Sarajevo, he worked for different media, and attended postgraduate studies in Sociology of Culture in Belgrade. From 1990 to 1992, he was the editor of a publishing house in Tuzla. In 1992 he moved to Germany, working at first in Nuremberg and Regensburg. Being awarded a scholarship from the “Heinrich Böll'' Foundation, he defended his master’s thesis of Interdisciplinary European Studies in Aachen. He has been awarded with numerous awards: Slovo Gorcina (1988), Annual Prize of the Writer’s Union of BiH for best book (2005); Seal of the Srem-Karlovac Varosh (2012); the Strezilovo Award (2013). He has also received several scholarships for literary residences from German literary institutions. He has published essays and analytical text in German and translates works into German, whereas his literary works have been translated in numerous languages. He has been a part of several anthologies of Bosnian, Montenegrin, Serbian and world poetry. Some of his published books are: Let us go into the field (Sarajevo, 1988), Circus Europe (Tuzla, 1990), Of noble killers and hired humanists (Klagenfurt/Celovec, 1997), Kawasaki for Vukman Dedović (Sarajevo and Klagenfurt, 2001), Sumatra Coffee (Sarajevo, 2005), Buddha of the Dinarides (Belgrade, 2018), For a Piano and Didgeridoo (Belgrade, 2010), Gloria Mundi (Sremski Karlovci, 2013), Heat (Novi Sad, 2013), Inner East (Sarajevo, 2015) and Fyodor’s Jazz (Belgrade, 2020).

Shpetim Selmani

Shpëtim Selmani (born 1986) is a Kosovan writer and actor. He studied at the University of Prishtina. He has acted on stage at both home and abroad. His books include: Shënimet e një Grindaveci (Hot-tempered Notes) in 2015, Selected Poems 2010-2017 – Poetry in Time of Blood and Despair (Multimedia, Prishtina) in 2017, Libërthi i dashurisë (Booklet of Love) published in 2019 by Armagedoni in Prishtina.

Jana Radičević

Jana Radičević, born 1997 in Podgorica, is a Montenegrin poet. She studied German language and literature at the University of Montenegro. She also studied German at universities in Marburg, Germany and Graz, Austria as an exchange student. She is an active member of the Forum of Young Writers community, whose members have been assembling at the Cultural Information Centre Budo Tomović in Podgorica since 2015. Her first book of poetry ako kažem može postati istina (if said, it can become the truth) was published in 2019 by Partizanska knjiga from Serbia. Her poetry has been published in many literature magazines, poetry collections and portals. Her poetry was translated in German, English, French, Russian, Slovenian and Greek translation has been announced. She is the youngest holder of the literature scholarship Writer of the City of Graz for 2020/21.

Zoran Pevec

Zoran Pevec, PhD, 1955, Celje, poet, essayist, editor, vice-president of the Slovenian Writers' Association. Nine poetry collections. He published a creative writing handbook (2006) and a monography on Slovenian urban poetry (2018). Awards: "Knight of Poetry" (2006), "Cup of Immortality" (2013) for a top 10-year poetic opus in Slovenia.

Gerardo Masuccio

Џерардо Мазучо е роден во Батипаља, педесет милји јужно од Неапол во 1991 година, а растел во соседното Олевано сул Тускано. Откако ги завршил Класичните студии во Еболи, се преселил во Милано во 2010 година, каде дипломирал Авторски права, а потоа и Издаваштво на Универзитетот Бокони. Од 2012 година, тој бил уредник на сериите „Каповерси“ за Бомпиани. Во 2020 година, ја основа издавачката куќа „Утопија“, која е насочена кон книжевна фикција и белетристика. „Утопија“ е италијанскиот издавач на Никанор Пара, Ана Бландијана, Ен Карсон, Ко Ун, Ида Витале, Наџа Мари Аидт и Љубомир Левчев. Неговата поезија е дел од антологии, списанија, посебни веб-страници и некомерцијални памфлети. Неговата прва книга е „Еден човек живеел тука“, која се стекнува со критички и комерцијален успех на национално ниво. Избран за шест книжевни награди, тој е добитник на најважната италијанска наградата за поетски дебитанти – 32-то издание на „Премио Камаиоре“, како и 61-то издание на „Премио Сан Доменикино“ за најдобро поетско издание на годината (издание на шпански јазик се подготвува тековно). Првото дело на Џерардо Мазучо е меланхолична и свесна химна за мистеријата на суштествувањето, во постојана рамнотежа помеѓу вознемирувањата на живот, стишувањето на вистината и чудноста на светот. Со еден буден, измерен и препознатлив стил, „Еден човек живеел тука“ е документарен доказ на еден живот обележан од минливоста на врските и љубовта, каде поетот станува сведок за сопствената маргиналност, и со гласот на искупението нуди суштина на сопствениот живот.

Juri Talvet

Jüri Talvet was born in 1945 in Pärnu (Estonia). A graduate of the University of Tartu (1972) and a PhD by Leningrad (St. Petersburg) University (1981), he chaired from 1992 to 2020 World / Comparative Literature program at Tartu University, where he also founded Spanish Studies. Today he is Professor Emeritus. In 2016 he was elected member of Academia Europaea. He has published in Estonian twenty books of poetry and essay. As translated into other languages, his books of poetry and essays have appeared in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Japanese, Catalan and Greek. Since 1996 he has acted as the main editor of Interlitteraria, international journal for comparative literature. He has been awarded Estonian Annual Prize of Literature for essay (1986), Juhan Liiv Prize of Poetry (1997), Ivar Ivask Memorial Prize (2002) Naji Naaman International Literature Honor Prize (for complete works, 2020) and Estonian National Science Prize for Lifework (2021).

Joel Vernet

Joël Vernet was born in Margeride in a small village on the borders of Haute-Loire and Lozère. From the years 75, undertakes several trips which will take him to the four corners of the world, in Africa, in particular in Mali. Over the course of numerous works published by Lettres Vives, Fata morgana, Le Temps qui fait, L'Escampette, La Rumeur libre, a unique style has developed, between poetry and the travel journal. He celebrates in his books the tiny and the immense, the near and the far. He lived for two years in Aleppo (Syria). Has lived for over twenty years in a very small village, not to get away from the world, but to be closer to it. Latest books published: Carnets du lent chemin, chips (1978-2016), La rumeur libre, Forgetting is a stain in the sky, Fata morgana, Fatigue dazzling, with paintings by Jean-Gilles Badaire, Ed. Du Frau, The night never extinguishes our dreams, Editions Lettres Vives, 2021, My father walks in my mother's eyes, The free rumor, 2021.

Balázs Szőllőssy

Balázs Szőllőssy (Budapest, 1981) is a Hungarian poet, translator, editor and cultural organizer. He was a member of the board of the Association of Young Writers in Hungary until 2018, since when he is working at the Hungarian Cultural Center in Istanbul, Turkey as cultural attaché. He also edited the debut-series of the Association between 2011 and 2017. His latest poetry book A Kilátó Presszóban (Café Mirador) was published in 2019 by Subotica-based Symposion Publishing House in Hungarian and English. He translates from English and Turkish and his works have been translated and published in Romanian, Turkish, English, Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian other than having been published in several Hungarian literary magazines. He has been organizing numerous literature and cultural events and festivals since 2009.

Suren Oyunchimeg

Suren Oyunchimeg was born on July 7th 1955 in Mogod, Bulgan province, Mongolia. She is a jurist and journalist by profession. President of the Union of Freelance Writers of Mongolia. S. Oyunchimeg has written over 100 poems. Some of the titles are: Steppe family, The bird Phoenix, Khan Jargalant, Spring of thinking, The Bride, Mother’s request for planet, Border Guard, Ranges of Altai’s mountains and so on. S. Oyunchimeg has published over 40 poetry editions and some of the titles are: Steppe melody, Masterpiece of the tea, Toward the sun, Candle for God, The sun of the Heavenly land, In the country of the Golden Khan, Anthology of the good thought etc. Awards and Recognitions: Medal of 70 years Jubilee of the People’s Revolution, (1991); Winner of the title of Best Cultural worker, 2020; Poetry Grand prix Award with the poem “Spring of thinking” 2002; Honorary Medal of the Union of the Mongolian Trade Unionist, 2003; Winner of the Poetry festival “Mother Gobi”, 2004; Awarded with the prestige medal “Altan Gadas” (Golden Star), 2004; Festive Medal of the Jubilee of 800 years of the Great Mongolian Empire, 2006; Medal on occasion of the Day of Independence, 2011; Medal for especial merit in area of Culture and Art, 2018; Awarded with the title of Meritorious Artist of Culture of Mongolia, 2021.

Lucilla Trapazzo

Lucilla Trapazzo - born in Cassino, Italy. She lives in Zurich, Switzerland and in NY. She studied German literature in Italy at La Sapienza University, Rome; later she got a post-graduate diploma in Technical Translation from the Lazio Regional Training Board, and a Master in Film & Video at the American University of Washington, D.C. She studied theater at the Fersen Academy in Rome, with Elizabeth Kemp (Actor’s Studio), and with Jonathan Fox (Playback Theater), then art with Barbara Rose at the AU, and at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C. She is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, among which: first prize poetry, La Nicchia, Rome 2018, first prize poetry Isolimpia, Napoli 2019; first prize “I Murazzi'' Torino 2019, Italy; Best Poem Cape Comorin Club Awards, India 2020; first prize Civil and Philosophical Poems, XI Checkhov’s Autumn International Festival, Crimea 2021; Gold medal for “Outstanding Poet Award” on the 2021 Yan’an Award, People Republic of China. She has been published in International anthologies and literary magazines – in Italy, Singapore, Argentina, North Macedonia, Tunisia, China, Serbia, India; guest of International Festivals – North Macedonia, Tunisia, Albania, Serbia, Italy, Argentina, Columbia, Croatia, India, Crimea, China, her poems have been translated in 13 different languages. Poetry books: “Ossidiana”, poetry book, September 2018, Volturnia Edizioni, Isernia, Italy; “Dei Piccoli Mondi”, poetry book, April 2019, Il Leggio Edizioni, Chioggia, Venezia; “Trentagiorni”, Haiku Lucilla Trapazzo, photographs Alfio Sacco, September 2019, Il Sextante, Roma;“Ruscellante”, poetry, April 2019, Volturnia Edizioni, Cerro al Volturno, IS, Italy. Co-editor of “Nello stesso Mare”, Tunisian-Italian poetry anthology, Tunisia, 2020. Co-editor and translator of “Transiti Poetici – Voci dal Mondo”, International poetry anthology, Italy, 2020. Co-editor and co-author “Transiti poetici incontra il GAP”, Circolo Letterario Anastasiano, 2021. Co-editor, “Golden Words”, Multilingual Poetry Anthology, Progressive Literary & Cultural Society, India-Uzbekistan, 2021. She featured in Marco Di Stefano’s CD, Multiverse, for Blue Spiral Records, composed on her poems, 2021.

Marwaan Makhoul

Marwaan Makhoul is a Palestinian poet, born in 1979 in the village of Boquai'a, Upper Galilee, to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother. He works in engineering as a managing director of a construction company. He has several works published in poetry, prose and drama, including collections of poetry: Hunter of Daffodils, Land of the Sad Passiflora, Verses the Poems Forgot with Me, where is my mom, and A Letter from the Last Man. And his first play: This isn’t Noah’s Ark. Makhoul won several prizes and awards of which the prize of best playwright in The Acre Theatre Festival in 2009 for his first play. His poetry has appeared worldwide in Arabic publications, and several of his poems have been set to music. Selections from his poetry have been translated into English, Turkish, Italian, German, French, Hebrew, Irish, Serbian and Hindi.

David Giannoni

David Giannoni - born in Nice (France) August 5, 1968, at 4:30 am. It was a Monday. Just to say: go to work!... Convinced to be French to his 15 years, he discovered Italy the day he moved to Rome with his family. There he discovers literature, art, poetry. He moved to Brussels in 1987 and in 1989 founded the project "maelstrÖm", a multi-arts and multimedia project. Director of the magazine and maelstrÖm collection before they become fully a publishing house, screenplayer ("Polders" with Claudio Serughetti. - Arte / Rtbf), co-founder of the poetic ReEvolution network with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Antonio Bertoli and Alejandro Jodorowsky, he has long worked in the "homeless-help” field, in Brussels, as night educator and project manager as "word spaces for the homelesses". In 2007 he created, together with Antonio Bertoli and Marco Giannoni, the fiEstival, International Poetry Festival in Brussels that comes at its 15th edition in 2021. Since 2011 the fiEstival grew up as one of the most various and rich poetry and performance festivals at an international scale, and since 2019 a true artistic group of more than 20 international artists is collegially conceiving and creating it. Since 2007 he is also director of the House of Poetry of Amay (Belgium) and L'Arbre à paroles publishing. In December 2010 he opened in Brussels, with the maelstrÖm Group, the Bookstore maelstrÖm 4 1 4. He is also a poet, painter, performer and therapist. He has published comics scenarios ("La Face cachée de la Ville" with Daniele Bacci), Poetry ("Œil ouvert, œil fermé", “L’indien de Breizh”, “La foi, la connaissance et le souvenir”) and a book of stories ("Tales of Nod"), all published by maelstrÖm Reevolution. He is the joyful father of a wonderful daughter, Gioia, and married with Nadejda Peretti, Italian-Russian artist.

Seth Michelson

Seth Michelson is an award-winning poet, translator, and professor of poetry. He has published seventeen books of original poetry in English and Spanish, poetry in translation, and a bilingual Spanish-English poetry anthology. He is frequently featured at poetry festivals, book fairs, and universities around the world, and his work has been translated into many languages, including Hindi, Italian, Malayalam, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Tamil, and Vietnamese. His many honors include fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the Lenfest Foundation, as well as prizes from Split This Rock, the International Book Awards, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and the American Studies Association. He teaches the poetry of the hemispheric Americas at Washington and Lee University (USA), where he founded and directs the Center for Poetic Research. As a translator he focuses on poetry from underrepresented voices in Latin America. For example, he published the first-ever single-author book of poetry by a female Mapuche poet from territorial Argentina. He likewise edited and translated the groundbreaking bilingual poetry anthology, Dreaming America: Voices of Undocumented Youth in Maximum-Security Detention. It showcases poetry from workshops that he led in Spanish for three years inside the most restrictive maximum-security immigration detention center in the USA for undocumented, unaccompanied youth. All proceeds from its sale go to a legal defense fund for incarcerated undocumented children. He welcomes contact at sethmichelson@gmail.com.

Fiona Sampson

Fiona Sampson is a leading British poet and writer, published in thirty-eight languages, who has received a number of awards in the US, India and Europe, including the 2020 European Lyric Atlas Prize and the 2019 Naim Frashëri Laureateship. She received an MBE for services to literature in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours, 2017. Sampson’s publications include twenty-nine volumes of poetry and literary non-fiction. From 2005-2012 she was the Editor of Poetry Review; she is Emeritus Professor of Poetry, University of Roehampton. She is a Trustee of the Royal Literary Fund, a Fellow and former Council Member of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Fellow of the English Association, the Higher Education Association and the Wordsworth Trust. Other honours include the Newdigate Prize, Cholmondeley Prize, Hawthornden Fellowship, and numerous writer’s awards from the Arts Councils of England and of Wales, Society of Authors, Poetry Book Society and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, as well as many national Book of the Year selections. Sampson is also a broadcaster and newspaper critic, librettist and literary translator, has held a number of international writing fellowships, and serves regularly on international juries. Among recent books, her eighth poetry collection, Come Down (2020), was a Book of the Year (Financial Times), her internationally acclaimed In Search of Mary Shelley was finalist for the Biographers’ Club Slightly Foxed Prize, and Two-Way Mirror: The life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared to critical acclaim this year.

Sandra Hubinger (VERSOPOLIS)

Sandra Hubinger was born and raised in Upperaustria. She studied German Philology and History at the University of Salzburg and Art of Language at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Since 2013 she writes poems, short prose and drama. Her works are published in literary magazines and anthologies (e.g.: Jahrbuch der Lyrik). She was awarded third prize at the Feldkircher poetry award 2013 and the H.C. Artmann- scholarship granted by the city of Salzburg and the Literaturhaus Salzburg 2018. She participated in literary fesitvals (Internationales Kulturenfestival Literatur & Wein, Krems, Lower Austria 2018; 19. poesiefestival berlin 2018). Her poems were translated into English, Italian and French. She lives in Vienna since 2004. Publications: Kaum Gewicht und Rückenwind. Gedichte. Edition Art Science. 2016; Wir gehen. Gedichte. edition keiper 2019.

Glorjana Veber (VERSOPOLIS)

Glorjana Veber (1981) is a poet, performer and spiritual researcher who holds a degree in political science and Ph.D. in Literary Studies on the topic Poetry - an element of social change. She has received a several national and international poetry awards and her poetry is translated into about 30 languages. Within her Institute IRIU she developed than 1000 innovative-experimental projects with poetry in Slovenia and abroad. She is the author of several poetry books in Slovenia and abroad and also a book of 500 akasha wisdom quotes.

Max Czollek (VERSOPOLIS)

Max Czollek lives in Berlin. He graduated in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin in 2012, and went on to complete his PhD at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at the Technische Universität Berlin in 2016. He is a founding-member of the Berlin poetry-collective G13 and of the magazine “Jalta – Positionen zur jüdischen Gegenwart”. In 2016, he organized the event “Desintegration. Ein Kongress zeigenössischer jüdischer Position” (Desintegration. A Congress of Contemporary Jewish Positions) at Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin. The follow-up “Radikale Jüdische Kulturtage” (Days of Radical Jewish Culture) took place in November 2017. It included the staging of his first play “Celan mit der Axt” (directed by Sapir Heller). Since 2013 Max Czollek has been the German curator for the project “Babelsprech” aiming to establish a cross-national network among young German-speaking poets organizing and attending events in Ukraine, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Liechtenstein. He has been invited to various international festivals and spent three months at the Kulturakademie Tarabya in 2018. He co-edited the anthology “Lyrik von Jetzt 3. Babelsprech” (Wallstein Verlag, 2015) and the catalogue “Desintegration. Ein Kongress zeitgenössischer jüdischer Positionen” (Kerber Verlag, 2017). His non-fiction books are published by Carl Hanser Verlag, München. His poetry collections “Druckkammern” (2012) and “Jubeljahre” (2015) as well as the e-book “A.H.A.S.V.E.R.” (2016) are published by the Verlagshaus Berlin.

Greta Ambrazaitė (VERSOPOLIS)

Greta Ambrazaitė (born 1993, in Vilnius) is a Lithuanian poetess, translator and book editor. She obtained a Master's degree in Literary Anthropology and Culture at Vilnius University. Her first poetry book Fragile Things (lt. Trapūs daiktai) was published in 2018. This book was awarded the Young Yotvingian Prize as a best young poet's book, published in two years. This book was also shortlisted in the top five list of the Best Poetry Books of 2018 in Lithuania and announced as the Poetry Book of the Year. In 2019 the poet was awarded the Young Artist's Prize by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. Greta Ambrazaitė's poetry has been translated into English, Latvian, Estonian, Polish, German, Spanish, Russian, Greek and Chinese languages. In addition to writing poems, Greta makes music as well: her lo-fi music album Blood Mouse (lt. Kraujo pelytė) was released under the stage-name of kog leval in 2019. Her second poetry book Adela will be published in 2022.

Borche Panov

Borche Panov was born in Radovish, Republic of North Macedonia. He graduated at the Faculty of Philology in Skopje in 1986. He has been a member of the Macedonian Writers Association since 1998. He is the author of 12 books of poetry: “What has Charlie Ch. Seen From Inside Out” (1991), “Eye of the cyclone” (1995), “Stop, Charlee” (2002), “The Tact” (2006), “The Riddle of Glass” (2008), “The Basilica of the Manuscript” (2009), “Imaginary Dinner” (2012), “Breath” (2014), “Human Silences” (2016) “Uhanija” (2017) “The Hurt Seashell” (2019) and “The Room of my Time Zones” (2021). Borche Panov has been included in several anthologies in the Republic of North Macedonia, as well as anthologies and collections in other countries around the world and the Balkans. His poetry has been translated into 25 languages of the world. At the end of 2016, a bilingual selection of his poetry in Macedonian and Bulgarian language was published in Bulgaria, titled “Particle Hematite”, and in 2017, the translation in Slovenian of his book “Breath” was published by the “Maus” publishing house from Maribor. At the end of 2018, a selection of his poetry was published in Serbian - “Shaving a Balloon” by the Writers Association of Serbia, and at the start of 2019, his book “Photoverses” was published in Bulgarian language. A selection of his poems was published in Croatian language “Blood juggling eight thousand poetic thoughts” in 2021, as well as a selection of his poems in English “Underground Apple” by the prestigious publishing house Demer in Holland. He is the recipient of numerous literary awards in Macedonia and abroad. In 2021, he was the recipient of the “Sahito” World poetry prize, as the winner of the award in a competition of great contemporary poets. In March of 2021, for the book “Shaving a Balloon” – a selection of his poetry published in Serbian, he received the notable worldwide recognition: World Poetry Prize “Premio Mondiale "Tulliola- Renato Filippelli" in Italy”, and many others. Borche Panov is the author of the following alternative plays: “Fifth Calendar Age" (2000), “Twin city" (2001), “In the Middle of the Dead-end Lane" (2002), „Homo Sapunens" (2004), “Catch the Moonwalker” (2005), “Divided by His Own Nose” (2006) and “Summer Cinema” (2007).

Vladan Krečković

Vladan Krečković was born in 1988 in Belgrade. He graduated Journalism and Communicology at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the Belgrade University. His poetry has been published in several literary magazines, such as Gradina, Koraci, Buktinja and web portals Astronaut, Strane, Afirmator. Paris, Texas is his first book of poetry. Beside poetry, he also writes prose and his short story “The Vanished” was included in the 41 st edition of Rukopisi - a collection of prose and poetry by authors from Ex-Yu countries.
"His debut collection has been published by Enklava. The book review states:
The very title of Vladan Krečković's debut poetry book Paris, Texas signifies in what way we should read the poems in front of us. Referring to the Wim Wender's cult classic, but also to the movie Chungking Express by an equally cult director - Wong Kar-Wai, that tell us the story of how life can be apathetic and meaningless after emotional break-ups, Vladan Krečković tells us, in a very subtle and non-pretentious way, the story of separations by trying to find his standpoint in the journeys, in looking at the family photographs, in communicating with a stranger who left a comment on YouTube, in the constant reminiscing and reconsidering, to find a supporting point from which his life can continue on its usual course. This book offers a different life perspective of a romantic loss, without any pathos, and represents a courageous step into the field of new sensibility."

Marija Dejanović

Marija Dejanović lives between Zagreb, Croatia, and Larissa, Greece. She published 3 poetry books. Her books, poems and dramatic texts won multiple Croatian and international awards. Translated poems by the author were published in around 15 world languages. She is a member of the Croatian Writers’ Society, Croatian PEN Centre, and Versopolis, one of the editors of Tema magazine, and assistant director of Thessalian Poetry Festival.

Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska

Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska (born February 3, 1979, Bitola, North Macedonia) is poetess, scientist, editor, literary critic, doctor of pedagogy, university professor. She works at the Faculty of Education-Bitola, St. “Kliment Ohridski” University-Bitola, Republic of North Macedonia and teaches the courses: Methodology of Teaching Language Arts, Creative Writing, Critical Literacy, Methodology of Teaching Early Reading and Writing, ect. She is co-founder of the University Literary Club “Denicija PFBT UKLO” and also of the Center for Literature, Art, Culture, Rhetoric and Language at the Faculty of Education-Bitola. She is a member of the Macedonian Writers’ Association, Macedonian Science Society – Bitola, Slavic Academy for Literature and Art in Varna – Bulgaria, Bitola Literary Circle, and she was president of the Macedonian Science Society Editorial Council (for two mandates). She is editor in chief of the literary journal “Rast”/ “Growth” issued by the Bitola Literary Circle, and also - editor in chief of the International Journal “Contemporary Dialogues” (Macedonian Science Society), and editor of “Literary Elements” Journal (Perun Artis), several poetry and prose books. Besides her scientific work published in many international scientific journals (over 100 articles), three university books (“Critical Literacy”, “Educational Leadership”, “Educational Leadership Trainings”) she writes poetry, prose and literary critics. She has published one prose book: “Coffee, Tea and the Red Sky” (2019), co-authored one poetry book for children and 8 poetry books: “Word about the Word” (2014), “Poems for the Margins” (2015), “Black Dot” (2017), Footprints” (2017), “Three” (2019), “House of Contrasts” (2019), “Electronic Blood” (2019), and “Math Poetry” (2020). Her book “Electronic Blood” is translated into Arabic language by Raed Anis Al-Jishi and published by Rashawen publishing house in United Arab Emirates in 2021. Her ninth poetry book with a title “Barefoot on an Air Line” which is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture in North Macedonia is in print. She has won special mention at the Nosside World Poetry Prize (UNESCO, 2011), the award for the best unpublished poem at the Macedonia Writers’ Association Festival (2018), “Krste Chachanski” prize for prose (2019), National “Karamanov” Poetry Prize for poetry 2019, Macedonian Literary Avant-garde (2020), “Abduvali Qutbiddin” (third, 2020, Uzbekistan), Premio Mondiale "Tulliola- Renato Filippelli" in Italy (2021), International Award of Excellence "City of Galateo-Antonio De Ferraris" (Italy, Rome, 2021), and the most important national award for poetry “Aco Shopov” (by Macedonian Writers’ Association in 2021 for the book “Math Poetry”). Her poetry was published in a number of anthologies, literary magazines and journals both at home and abroad, and her works are translated into more than 38 languages: English, Serbian, Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Romanian, Polish, Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, Vietnamese, Uzbek, Bengali, German, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Sicilian, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Farsi, Icelandic, Russian, Filipino, Hebrew, Tamil, Bangla, Irish, Armenian, Indonesian, Malay, Catalan. She has translated many literary works from English, Serbian and Bulgarian language into Macedonian and vice versa.

Nurie Emrullai

Nurie Emrullai was born in 1992, Kicevo, Republic of North Macedonia. She received her BA of Albanian Language and Literature and the MA of Albanian Language at University of Tetovo. Currently she works as a teacher at an Elementary School in Kichevo. In 2018 she was a literature representative at the CEEC Literature Forum in Ningbo, China. She presented her poems dedicated to the Albanian woman at the Exhibition “Girl, not bride”, in Zurich, 2018. She was part of the FemArt2019 edition in Kosovo. She will be a participant in the International “Polip Festival” in Kosovo. She was announced by the National Center for Books and Reading in the poetry section with the book Let Love Come As it Want. She is the winner of the READ program for 2021 with the residence in Turkey. She has published two books of poetry: “For the Other Half of the Moon”, Syth, Tetovo, 2020, and “The underground range mountain”, Onufri, Tirana, 2021.

Katica Kulavkova

She was born in Veles on 11 December 1951. She is a poet, literature critic, essay writer, translator, and anthologist. She is a member of MASA and Secretary of the Department for Linguistics and Literature Study. She has graduated from the Philosophy-history Faculty at the University Ss Cyril and Methodius in Skopje. She has obtained a PhD degree at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb with the thesis: Characteristics of Lyricism. She works at the Faculty of Philology in Skopje. She worked for one year in the Lectorate of Macedonian Language and Literature at INALCO in Paris. She was an one-term President of the Macedonian P.E.N. centre. In the essay “Before Katica Kulavkova’s Poetry”, academic Mateja Matevski sublimely notes:”Bearing inside an impressive quantum of information, knowledge and data from a rich textbook in a widespread intellectual and imaginative historic and geographic cultural range,with firm fundaments in aesthetics, poetics and linguistics, over the dismantled standard language, syntax and structure of poetry Katica Kulavkova does not proceede with knocking down and ruining, but she realizes and confirms her concept of lyricism, her creative approach, her principle of a certain “speech of accord, high eloquence where sound and meaning correspondent...”, her “personal and atypical concept of the world and human” Works: Annunciation (poetry, 1975), The Act (poetry, 1978), Our consonant (poetry, 1981), New sweat (poetry, 1984), Figurative Speech in Macedonian Poetry (studies, 1984), Neuralgic spots (bilingual edition, Vrsac, poetry, 1986), Step and resignation (essays and criticism, 1987), Wild thought (selection of poetry, 1989), The specifics of Lyrics (study, 1989), Thirsts, lascivious poems (poetry, 1989), Different time (poetic prose, 1989), Longing for a system (studies and criticism, 1992), Domino (poetry, 1993), Venture and Result (criticism, 1996), Expulsion of Evil (poetry, 1997), Stone of temptation (criticism, 1997), Theory of Literature (1999), Macedonian Essay (2000), Inter-world (poetry, 2000), Hermeneutics and poetics (chrestomathy, 2003)

Jordan Danilovski

Jordan Danilovski is a poet, literary critic, essayist, novelist. Born 15th January 1957 in Debar, Republic of Macedonia. Graduated from the Faculty of Philology in Skopje. Member of the Macedonian Writers’ Association. Published poetry books: Fire-eater (1982), Movement, Space and Time (1984), Inner Language (1986), Multiplying Silence (1989), Simona and tales (poetry for children, 1991), Presentiment (1992), Simona is a gold piece (poetry for children, 1992), Daybreak (1994), Ona Mona to Simona (poetry for children, 1994), Book tma (1996), The Wild nest (1998), Mystic (1999), Book Navi (2002), Book OM (2004), Whispered One (2006). One of the founders of Stozer literary review and the literary festival of the Macedonian Writers’ Association. Awards include “Miladinovci Brothers”, “Aco Sopov”.

Slave Gjorgjo Dimoski

He was born in the village of Velestovo, Ohrid in 1959. He is a poet for children and adults, essay writer, translator. He is the founder of Velestovo Poetry Night, and former president of the Board of the Struga Poetry Evenings. He is the author of more than fi fteen poetry books: Poetry books: Engravings, 1979, Project, 1982; Cold Urge, 1985; The Last Manuscripts,1988, By- Way, 1991; Objects and Arguments, 1994; Forms of Passion, 1999; Dark Place, 1999, Weighing the words (2007), Field. Battlefield? (2008), The triptych of language (2016), Lynx reports (2017). His works have been translated and published in numerous anthologies. He has won several national and international awards among which “Aco Šopov” award and “Miladinov Brothers” award.

Zoran Anchevski

Zoran Anchevski (b. 1954), is a poet, university professor, translator and essayist. He has published eight books of poetry that have been well received by the critics and highly acclaimed and awarded by various awards, including Studentski Zbor, for best first book of poems (1984), the international poetry award Giacomo Leopardi in Italy (2004), the Miladinov Brothers Award at the Struga Poetry Evenings Festival, the most prestigious national poetry award for his most recent book of poems Celestial Pantomime (2018), etc. He has also published a number of essays, reviews, and a book-length study in literary theory and criticism, Of Tradition (2007). He is the editor and translator of several poetry and short story anthologies in English and of many major British, American and Macedonian poets and prose writers into Macedonian or English. For his work in translation he was awarded the national translation award Grigor Prlichev (2001). His Selected Poems (in Macedonian and English) was published in 2011. Selections from his poetry have been translated into more than twenty languages and published in various magazines and anthologies at home and abroad. He is a member of Macedonian Writers’ Union, two times secretary and current president of Macedonian P.E.N., former president of the Organizing Board of the Struga International Poetry Festival (2002-2007). Lives and works in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia.

Vele Smilevski

Vele Smilevski was born in 1949 in Novo Selo, Demir Hisar area. He is a poet, literature critic and essayist. He has obtained a PhD degree in philological sciences. He works as an expert councilor in the Macedonian Literature Institute and he is a professor at the Department of Journalism at the Faculty of Law in Skopje. He was a president of the Board of Struga Poetry Evenings and President of the Writers’ Association of Macedonia. He is a member of the Macedonian PEN Centre. He was chief editor of the publishing house “Misla” and Macedonian literary magazine “Razgledi”. He is the author of the books of poetry Burning down picture (1974), Cage (1978), Take a Deep Breath (1985), Echo of the Breath (1987), Moving points (1990), Scratches (1995) and others.

Sande Stojcevski

He was born in the village fo Strudena Bara, Kumanovo, on 16 September 1948. He is a poet, essay writer, literature critic and translator. He worked as a journalist, and later on as an editor of the Aducational Section of Radio Skopje, editor-in-chief and manager of the Publishin House “Makedonska Kniga”, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Stremez” from Prilep and the recently found magazine “AKT” from Skopje. He is a co-author of a five-vulume edition “Macedonian Literature in the Literature Criticism” (1973). As a poet he strives to unite the archaic (dialectic) and modern models of expression, from his first book “King of the Swans” (1972) to the last “Loose Yarn i s the World” (2003). His poetry is realized through the use of the three principles: the principle of archaism, tjhe principle of interpolation and the principle of text-test.

Iva Damjanovski

Iva Damjanovski, born on 09.01.1996 in Skopje, N. Macedonia, is a recently graduated Piano Performance student at the Faculty of Music, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, class of prof. Todor Svetiev (2014-2019) and is currently studying at the Free University of Bolzano, at the Master of Musicology Program. She is the author of “The performance of the future – the contemporary performance phenomenon in music and theatre, it’s development and communication with the audience.”, published in the fourth edition of the scientific journal “Ars Academica” by the Faculty of Music and Faculty of Dramatic Arts – Skopje (2016) and ““ELEORP 76”: MUSICA NOVA MACEDONICA: Macedonian Electroacoustic music, her development and characteristics“, published and presented at the fourty-second conference of the annual Struga Autumnal Music Manifestation by SOKOM (2017). Her first poetry book “Тие” was published by “Blesok Publishing“ and the book is the winner of the “Igor Isakovski” award for best debut poetry book by a young author (2017). In 2019 the second and broadened edition was published by PNV Publications and in 2020 her second poetry book “Двоумење” was published by the same publisher and was recently awarded the prestigious national award “Браќа Миладиновци” at the Struga Poetry Evenings. Her poetry has been published in the anthology poetry book “Rukopisi 40” (2017), the anthology poetry book “32 Macedonian Poets. Voices of the new Century” (PNV Publishing) and an Anthology of Young Poets from N. Macedonia publushed by Vakxikon. Her poetry has been translated in serbian, croatian, slovenian, greek and english. She is part of the experimental electro-acoustic project “Improof” (piano, vocals, theremin) as well as director and part of the organization and performing team of “No Hay Banda”, a series of concerts dedicated to film music, in collaboration with the Faculty of Dramatic Arts – Skopje and the interdisciplinary concert-couple “Monochromatica” and “Monologues” dedicated to contemporary Macedonian classical music. She has worked actively with theatre and is the author of the score for the play “The White Disease“ by Karel Čapek, directed by Gorjan Arevski, which premiered in 2018. She is also a member of the “Pro Ars” choir (conducted by Maestro Sasho Tatarchevski) and actively participated in the projects and concerts organized by the University as well as student-organized events. Currently works as an accompanist at the Faculty of Music, University Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje and on an album as part of the experimental duo “Alembic”.

Suzana Spasovska

Suzana V. Spasovska was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1972. She received both her B.A and M.A at the Faculty of Philology “Blaze Koneski” in Skopje and at the moment she is doing her PhD. Suzana has published six books of poetry – “Both Love and Conspiracy”, 1996; “Mortal Letter”, 2002; “Woman Divine”,2006; “Through the Incense, A Lily”; 2014, „Butterfly from Ash“ 2018 and „The Language of Light 2020“. In 2002, a selection of her poetry, “Mirrors, Goodbye” was translated in Bulgarian and published in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2006, she edited the anthology of poetry of young Macedonian authors, “Purple Springs” that was published by the poetry festival “Struga Poetry Evenings”. Her poems have been published in several domestic anthologies. She is the editor in chief in the online magazine for literature and arts, “Blesok”. She works as a professional proofreader and a lecturer of Macedonian.

Ivan Djeparoski

Ivan (Ivica) Djeparoski (b.1958, Skopje) is a poet, philosopher, cultural theorist and translator. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. He is an author of twenty eight books: six poetry books, three poetry anthologies, thirteen books in the field of aesthetics and cultural theory and also of six anthologies in literature and aesthetics, for which he was awarded the “Mlad Borec” (1984), “Dimitar Mitrev” (1993) “Paradigm” (2009), and “Brothers Miladinov Prize” (2016). He works at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje as a professor of “Aesthetics”, “History of Aesthetics” and “Cultural Theories”. He was/is head of the Institute of Philosophy (2004-2009; 2013-2020), head of postgraduate studies of the Institute of philosophy (2010-2013) and secretary of Macedonian P.E.N. Centre (1999-2001; 2009-2014). He also translates (W. Blake, Y. Brodsky, J. Joyce, D. Hume). He was granted the “Grigor Prlicev Award” (1993) for a poetic rendition. His poetry and some of his essays are translated into more than twenty languages (English, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Chinese etc.), and selections of his poetry in a separate books are published in Bulgaria, Romania, Kosovo end Serbia. His book “Macedonian Essay” has been translated into English, German, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese language (2011-2016), while his book “The Work of Art” into Albanian language (2018). Poetry books: Pictures at an Exhibition, Skopje: Nasa kniga, 1989; Eclogues, Skopje: Makedonska kniga, 1992; Poems, Skopje: Detska radost, 1998; Will for Thought, Bitola: Mikena, 2008; The Abduction of Europe, Skopje: Dijalog, 2012; The Light of Mount Athos, Skopje: Magor, 2015. Poetry anthologies: Beautiful words, Skopje: Detska radost, 1993; (3rd edition, Skopje: Prosvetno delo, 2017); Anthology of tears (selection and introduction), Skopje: MakeDox, 2012; Noah’s Ark: Poetry and Animalia (selection and introduction), Struga: SPE, 2019. Poetry books translated in Bulgarian, English, Romanian, Serbian and Albanian: Now and Then (in Bulgarian language), trans. D. Hristov, Sofia-Skopje: Multiprint-Makavej, 2006; Will for Thought (in English language), trans. from Macedonian Ana Mitoska, Macedonian Literature in English, Vol. 82, Skopje: St. Clement of Ohrid, National and University Library – Skopje., 2011; Sedimente ale istoriei / Layers of History Talmaciri din macedoneana de Dumitru M. Ion si Carolina Ilica, Bukuresti: Academia Internaţionalǎ Orient-Occident, 2012 (bilingual poetry edition in Romanian and English); The Light of Mount Athos (Translated from the Macedonian into English by Zoran Ančevski), Struga: Struga Poetry Evenings, 2017; The Light of Mount Athos (in Serbian language), trans. Rajko Lukač, Belgrade: Gramatik, 2018; Abduction of Europe (in Albanian language) trans. Shkëlzen Halimi, Prishtinë: Armagedoni, 2020.

Zvonko Karanovich

Zvonko Karanovich (1959, Nish, Serbia) has published ten poetry books, three novels, and seven poetry collections that were published abroad.  He has received a few poetry awards in Serbia and international literacy scholarships, among which is the „Heinrich Böll Foundation“, Cologne, Germany, 2011.  He was representend in a number of  domestic and foreign anthologies of the contemporary Serbian poetry. His poetry has been translated in sixteen languages. He lives in Belgrade, where in 2018 he established "PPM Enklava" publishing house and a web portal "Enklava", both of which promote good and distinct poetry.

Sudeep Sen

Sudeep Sen’s prize-winning books include Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Rain, Aria (A. K. Ramanujan Translation Award), The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (editor), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions) and EroText (Vintage: Penguin Random House). Blue Nude: New Poems & Ekphrasis (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize) is forthcoming. Sen’s works have been translated into over 25 languages. His words have appeared in many prestigious literary magazines and newspapers. Sen’s newer work appears in New Writing 15 (Granta), Language for a New Century (Norton), Leela: An Erotic Play of Verse and Art (Collins), Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Random House/Everyman), Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), and Initiate: Oxford New Writing (Blackwell). He is the editorial director of AARK ARTS and the editor of Atlas. Sen is the first Asian honoured to speak and read at the Nobel Laureate Week. The Government of India awarded him the senior fellowship for “outstanding persons in the field of culture/literature.”

Jovica Ivanovski

Jovica Ivanovski– born in Skopje, 1961. Author of fifteen books of poetry and several selections in Macedonian and English language. He is present in numerous anthologies and has had his works translated in fifteen languages. Winner of the “Brothers Miladinov” Award at the “Struga Poetry Evenings” for his book “The human”. He works and lives in Skopje.

Amir Or

Amir Or, born in Tel Aviv in 1956, is the author of ten volumes of poetry. His latest books in Hebrew are The Museum of Time (2007) Heart Beast (2010) and Prophecy of the Madman (2012). His poems, translated into more than forty languages, have appeared in anthologies, poetry journals, as well as in twelve books in Europe and the U.S. Among them are Poem and Day (both published by Dedalus, U.K., in 2004, and 2006, respectively); Plates from the Museum of Time (ArtAark, U.S., 2009); and the Spanish-English Miracle/The Hours (Urpi Editores, U.S., 2011). Or is the recipient of Israeli and international poetry awards, including the Bernstein Prize, the Fulbright Award for Writers, the Levi Eshkol Prime Minister’s Poetry Prize, and the Oeneumi literary prize of the Tetovo Poetry Festival (2010). He was also awarded several poetry fellowships, among them fellowships from Iowa University; the Centre of Jewish-Hebrew Studies at the University of Oxford; the Literarische Colloquium, Berlin; the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Ireland; and from the Hawthornden Castle, Scotland. He is recipient of the Golden Wreath for 2020, Struga

Martina Straková

Martina Straková studied cultural sciences and graduated from the Faculty of Arts at the Comenius University in Bratislava. Later she received scholarships at leading German universities and her PhD title in Philosophy. Since 2013, she has been co-organizing the International Poetry Festival Ars Poetica, where she holds a free creative writing workshop Bring Your Poem offered to the wide public as a regular part of the festival program. She is dedicated to writing poetry, fairy tales for children, painting and artistic translation from/to German and English language. She debuted with her poetry collection called Postcards from Invisible Places (Pohľadnice z neviditeľných miest, Ars Poetica, 2019). She lives and works in Bratislava.

Georgi Gospodinov

Georgi Gospodinov (1968), one of the most translated and awarded Bulgarian authors had his literary debut in the 1990s with the poetry collections Lapidarium (1992, South Spring Award) and The Cherry Tree of a People (1996, several editions by now). His next poetry books are Letters to Gaustine, the anthological collection Baladies and Maladies, and the most recent, Where We Are Not (2016, The Quill Award for Poetry). His poems had been selected for European and world anthologies, and his poetry books were published in Germany, Macedonia, Romanian, The Czech Republic, Portugal… Gospodinov’s Natural Novel came out in more than 20 languages all over the world. His second novel, The Physics of Sorrow, was awarded Jan Michalski Prize for literature, Central European Angelus Award and was finalist for six international prizes in Europe and the US, including Premio Strega Europeo, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Preis (Berlin) and American PEN Translation Prize. The novel was praised by The New Yorker, Die Zeit, Liberation, etc. Weddings of Animals and Things, children book written and drawn together by Gospodinov and his daughter, Raya, appeared in 2015. “Blind Vaysha”, a short animation (dir. Theo Ushev) based on Gospodinov’s short story from his book, “And Other Stories”, made it to the Academy Awards nominees in 2017. In 2017-2018 Gospodinov is awarded with the New York Public Library fellowship at the Cullman Center

Bogomil Gjuzel

He was born in Cacak, Serbia, 1939. A poet, narrator, playwright, essayist, translator. He graduated at the University “Ss Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje. He has translated the works of Shakespeare, Wystan Hugh Auden and Thomas Stearns Eliot. In 1994, he becomes the first president (and one of the founders) of the association of Independent writers of Macedonia, as well as a longtime editor of their magazine “Nashe pismo”. In several terms, he was a member of the SPE Board, Director of the SPE, as well as a current member of the “Golden Wreath” Board. He was the winner of prestigious awards at the International poetry gathering in Zagreb in 2002, and “Bosnian Stećak” at the Sarajevo days of poetry, in 2018. Works: Mead (1962), Alchemical Rose (1963), Libation Bearers (1965), Odysseus in Hell (1969), A Well in Time (1972), The Wheel of the Year (1977), Reality is All (1980), State of Siege (1981), Empty Space (1982), Darkness and Milk (1986), Destroying the Wall (1989), Selected Poems (1991), Naked Life (1994), Chaos (1998), She/It (2000); essays: History as Stepmother (1969); prose: The Whole World is a House (1975), Mytho-Stories (three plays, 1982), Legends (1984), Selected Poetry (1962-2002), 2002, “Survival” (2003), “Hourglass”, (2008), “An island on land”, (2008), and Collected works in 7 tomes.

John Yau

John Yau has published many books of poetry, fiction, and criticism. His latest publications include a book of poems, Bijoux in the Dark (2018) and a book of essays, Foreign Sounds or Sounds Foreign (2020). Recent monographs include Philip Taaffe (2018), Thomas Nozkowski (2017) and Catherine Murphy (2016). He has also written monographs on Wifredo Lam, Joan Mitchell, A. R. Penck, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol, contributed essays to numerous museum publications and catalogs, and published two collections of essays, The Passionate Spectator (2006) and The Wild Children of William Blake (2017). In 1999, he started Black Square Editions, a small press devoted to poetry, fiction, translation, and criticism. He was the Arts Editor for the Brooklyn Rail (2007–2011) before he co-founded the online magazine, Hyperallergic Weekend, where his reviews of art, literature, and film appear regularly. He has received awards and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, National Endowment of the Arts, Academy of American Poets, New York Foundation of the Arts, Ingram Merrill Foundation and the General Electric Foundation. In 2018, he received the Jackson Award in Poetry. He has been named a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. He is Professor of Critical Studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University) and lives in New York.

Ariel Spiegler

Ariel Spiegler was born in Sao Paulo in 1986. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne University. In 2011, she successfully passed the agrégationcompetition, and taught philosophy for a few years. She then resigned, and decided to dedicate herself to writing. She sings in bars and works every now and then for several publishers. In 2016, she started publishing her poems in various reviews, to critical support. In Décharge, Claude Vercey wrote: “She seems to have rediscovered that secret of things stern and light, spiritual and emotional, which Pierrot and Colombine whispered in each other’s ear, in Paul Verlaine’s Fêtes galantes. (…) These sad couplets have, it seems, caught the attention of many.” (Claude Vercey, Décharge, « L’hiver, poèmes sauvés » I. D n° 609) In January 2017, she published her first collection at Editions de Corlevour, C’est pourquoi les jeunes filles t’aiment, which was singled out by the press, namely Le monde, Le matricule des Anges, Télérama, Libération, and L’humanité. In Sitaudis, Patrick Kéchichian thus wrote: “What if the invisible weren’t far away, conveniently out of reach – but concretely among us, close at hand, almost? (…) The surprising poems from Ariel Spiegler’s first collection both contradict this trick and mend this separation. The poems, such as the three admirable last ones, are often short. The longer ones stand out as well. What if the higher form of peace were a move, a dance?” In l’Humanité, Nicolas Dutent notes: “There is breath in these poems, with a sense of elegy and oration.” In November 2017, C’est pourquoi les jeunes filles t’aimentwas awarded the Prix Apollinaire Découverte. Her second book will be published in fall 2019 in Gallimard’s white collection. Des astres (Some Stars)is a chapbook written especially for Versopolis. It weaves together the world of song, a story of acrobats, and prayer.

Alen Brlek

Alen Brlek (1988., Zagreb, Croatia) won Na vrh jezika award for his first poetry book Metakmorfoze (2014.). His second poetry book, Pratišina, was published in Serbia, by Kontrast izdavaštvo in year 2017. Finally, his third book, Sang, was published 2019. in HDP, Croatia, and got awarded with Kirin award for best poetry book that year. Book can be read like trilogy of body, mind and soul. His poems are translated in numerous languages and are published in numerous publications; most recently in Marko Pogačar’s selection of croatian poetry The edge of a page.

Halil Matoshi

Born in Dardana, Kosovo, on February 24, 1961, he studied Philosophy-Sociology at the University of Prishtina. Was taken hostage on May 21, 1999 by Serbian security forces, he spent nearly a year in prisons in Lipjan (Kosovo) and Pozarevac (Serbia); Writes poetry, stories and essayistic. He is the author of the books “Spirit of graves in the waves” (poetry), “Bota e Re” 1988; “Journey through a bad dream” (mixed book, poetry, stories, literary sketches), 1994; “The dumb messenger” (stories) 1996; “Journey through a nightmare” (war diary and essay) 2000; “Shadow of Christ” (poetry), 2004, “Paper Cathedral: The Last City and the Home, The Saga of Prishtina, Its People and Other Stories, 2011 (essays and portraits) and “In the Beginning”; poetry, 2013;

Salajdin Salihu

Salajdin Salihu, born in Tetovo Macedonia in 1970. Studied Albanian language and literature. Till now he has published these books of poetry: Dieing after small things (poetries and stories, 1996), The first night of the conquest (poetries and stories, 1998). For a while he used to work as an editor at the culture revue Brezi 9 (Generation 9); His poetries are presented in a several anthologies and they are translated in an English, French, Italian, Macedonian language etc.

Nikolina Andova Shopova

Nikolina Andova Shopova was born on 3 feb. 1978 in Skopje. She graduated from the Faculty of Philology (Macedonian and South Slavic literature) at the Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. She writes poetry and her haiku takes part in the anthology of the new wave of Macedonian haiku. She has published two books of poetry „The entrance is on the other side“(2013) and „Connect the dots“ (2014). Her first book „The entrance is on the other side“ was awarded with the prestigious award „Bridges of Struga“ in 2013, award of UNESCO and the Struga Poetry evenings for best debutante book.

Lulëzim Haziri

Lulëzim Haziri, born 1962 in Gostivar, Macedonia. Published books of poetry: Songs Are Born in Solitude (“Kënga lind në vetmi”), Rilindja, 1989, When Doors Open with a Bell (“Kur dyert hapen me zile”), Vatra, 1995, “Safari Exit”(Dalja nga Safari), Brezi 9, 2005, Solitude Hanging as a Door Number (“Vetmi e varur si numër në portë”), Logos-А, 2015 Published books of essays and columns: Albanian Rock and Roll! (“Rokenrolli Albanian!”), Jakupi, 2000, Black and White (“Bardhë e zi”), Nositi Sh, 2010. Translated books: When Love Crumbles Like Chalk (book of poems translated into Macedonian), GOTEN, 2017. His poems have been translated into English, French, Romanian, Croatian and Macedonian. He has also published several short stories. Active in the field of protection of human rights.

Nikola Madzirov

Nikola Madzirov (27 October 1973 in Strumica) – Macedonian poet, essay writer and translator. Works: Locked in the City (poetry, 1999), Somewhere Nowhere (poetry, 1999), Asphalt, Sky (poetry, 2003), Translocated Stone (poetry, 2007). He has won the awards of: Studentski Zbor, Aco Karamanov, Miladonov Brothers and European Award for young poet Hunert Burda allocated to authors born in Central and Eastern Europe. His poetry has been translated into many languages and it has been published in several selections and anthologies of Macedonian poetry. He is the coordinator for Macedonia of the international poetry network Lyrikline. He has taken part in many international poetry festivals and he hes won several international recognitions and scholarships (Internacional Writing Program ot University od Iowa; Kuiltur Kontakt in Vienna; Internationales Haus der Autoren Graz; Litereatur Haus НÖ).

Vladimir Martinovski

Vladimir Martinovski (1974) is poet, prose writer, literary critic, translator. He is an assistant professor at the General and Comparative Literature Department of the “Blaže Koneski” Faculty of Philology, Ss “Cyril and Methodius” University, Skopje. He received his bachelor and masters degrees at the Faculty of Philology, and his PhD at the University of the New Sorbonne – Paris III. He has authored the following books: From Image to Poem – Interference between Contemporary Macedonian Poetry and Fine Arts (a study, 2003), Maritime Moon (haiku and tanka, 2003), Hidden Poems (haiku, 2005), And Water and Earth and Fire and Air (haiku, 2006), Comparative Triptychs (studies and essays, 2007), Les Musées imaginaires, or Imaginary Museums (a study, 2009), A Wave Echo (haibuns, 2009), Reading Images – Aspects of Ekphrastic Poetry (a study, 2009) and Quartets (poetry, 2010). He co-edited the books: Ut Pictura Poesis – Poetry in Dialogue with Other Arts, a Thematic Selection of Macedonian Poetry (with Nuhi Vinca, 2006) and Metamorphoses and Metatexts (with Vesna Tomovska, 2008). He was awarded first prize at the “Nova Makedonija” Short Story Competition in 2009, and “Miladinov Brothers” Award in 2010.

Tadeusz Dąbrowski

Тадеуш Домбровски– роден во 1979 година. Поет, есеист, критичар. Уредник на двомесечното списание „Топос“. Неговите дела биле објавувани во многу списанија во Полска и странство, како „Њујоркер“, „Парис ривју“, „Бостон ривју“, „Агни“, „Американ поетри ривју“, „Тин хаус“, „Харвард ривју“, „Крејзихорс“, „Поетри дејли“, „Поетри ривју“, „Поетри Лондон“, „Акцент“, „Шпрасе им тенишен Зеиталер“, „Син и Форм“, и „Манускрипт“ помеѓу останатите. Добитник е на стипендии доделени од Фондацијата „Ландис и Гир“ (Швајцарија, 2019), „Литературхаус Цирих“ (Швајцарија, 2016), „Јадо“ (САД 2015), Меѓународниот центар за уметност „Оми“ (САД, 2013), „Студиски центар Вермонт“ (САД, 2011), „Литератур Лана“ (2011), „Интернатионел хаус дер ауторен“, Грац (2008), стипендии од Министерство за култура на Полска (2007, 2010), „Литерариш колоквиум Берлин“ (2006, 2012), и Балтичкиот центар за писатели и преведувачи (Визби, 2004, 2010).  Тој е добитник на многу награди, меѓу кои се вбројуваат: Наградата „Хорст Биенек“ (2014), Наградата „Кошчиелски“ (2009), Книжевната награда на главниот град Варшава (2014), Наградата „Хуберт Бурда“ (2008), и од Тадеуш Ружевиќ, Наградата од Фондацијата за полска култура (2006). Тој бил номиниран за „Најки“, најпрестижната книжевна награда во Полска (2010). Неговите дела се преведени на 30 јазици. Автор е на осум збирки поезија на мајчиниот полски јазик, од кои најскорешната, „Драсканица“ беше објавена во 2020. Живее во Гдањск, на балтичкиот брег на Полска.

Mangalesh Dabral

Mangalesh Dabral was born in 1948 in a village in the Tehri Garhwal district in the Himalayan region. He has spent all his adult life as a cultural editor in various newspapers published from Delhi. His books include six collections of poems, titled Pahar Par Laltein (Lantern on the Mountain, 1981), Ghar Ka Rasta (The Way Home, 1981), Hum Jo Dekhate Hain (That Which We See, 1995), Aawaaz Bhi Ek Jagah Hai (Voice Too Is a Place, 2000), Naye Yug Mein Shatru (Enemy in the New Era, 2014) and Smriti Ek Doosara Samay hai (Memory Is Another Time, 2020); two collections of literary essays and sociocultural commentary, titled Lekhak Ki Roti (Writer’s Bread, 1998) and Kavi Ka Akelapan (Solitude of a Poet, 2008); two travelogues, Ek Baar Iowa (Once, Iowa) and Ek Sadak EK Jagah (A Road And A Place, 2020) and a book of conversations, Upkathan (Substatements, 2014). He was a fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, US in 1991. Mangalesh Dabral has participated in the Poetry International Festival, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 2008 and Sabad International Poetry Festival, New Delhi in 2014. He has also given poetry readings in Bulgaria, erstwhile Czechoslovakia, Nepal, Mauritius, Japan, Russia, and various cities in Germany, including on the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2006. He has translated into Hindi the poems of Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Ernesto Cardenal, Yannis Ritsos, Tadeusz Różewicz, Zbigniew Herbert, to name a few. He has also worked as a consultant to the National Book Trust, India, and has received a number of awards, including Shamsher Sammaan (1995), Pahal Sammaan (1998), the Sahitya Akademi Award (2000), Delhi Hindi Academy’s Sahityakar Samman (2001), and Kumar Vikal Smriti Award (2008). Dabral’s poems have been widely translated and published in all major Indian languages and in Russian, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Bulgarian, Portuguese and Serbian. They have been included in various periodicals, such as World Literature Today, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Poetry Review, and The Little Magazine, and the anthologies Periplus, Survival, Gestures, Signatures, etc.

Majo Danilović

Majo Danilović – Born 1955. Graduated in political science. Free graphic designer who lives in Belgrade. Independent writer and member of the Association of Writers of Serbia. Member of the World Academy of Poetry, Verona.Coordinator of the World Academy of Poetry for the region Slavic countries. Published from 2008, in hundreds of literary collections, almanacs and magazines. Translated into Bulgarian, Italian, English, Macedonian, Slovenian and Polish. He is a member of several literary clubs and associations Editor in Chief of poetic concept Poezija stenka, Belgrade. His poems and stories have won significant awards, and he himself is the holder of the Ravanchanin, Serbian Spirutualy Accademy-Paracin Lifetime Achievement Award.

Shagdar Lkhamnorjmaa

Poetess from Mongolia. Born in Chuluut soum, Arkhagai province, Mongolia, in 1976. Graduated at the Institute of Literature and Social Work in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. Published a book of poems The secret lover in 2002, Native land in 2004, Time is my Lover in 2006, Heart Tickle in 2006, and Global Peace in 2009. Published a book of Poems and Songs in the same year. In 2014 she performed a symphony and poetry event Creation of you. In 2018 published the albums Gingoo, The mother autumn, Eternal time love and published her poetry book Vision drawn by light in the same year. The poetess Shagdar Lkhamnorjmaa won the first place in the prestige poetry festival of the Mongolian Writer’s Union Bolor Tsom (Crystal Cup) in 2007. In 2008 she won the Best Writer Award Altan Ud (Golden Feather). She was awarded in 2008 with the State Award Altan Gadas (Golden Star) medal, as a meritorious artist. She has won the Mongolian Writer’s Union Award in 2009.

Betsimar Sepúlveda

Betsimar Sepúlveda, (Rubio-Táchira, Venezuela, 1974. A poet, chronicler and photographer. She was born in Venezuela and has lived in Cali, Columbia since 2007. She has published four books, and some of her works appear in anthologies published in Columbia, Peru and Spain. Some of her poems have been translated into English, Portuguese, Italian and Arabian. Her works emphasize the reconstruction of collective memory based on the image and creative writing such as chronicles and poetry. She has coordinated programs to promote reading and writing literature with emphasis on the reconstruction of the collective memory and the immaterial heritage in academic and unconventional circles.

Yasuhiro Yotsumoto

Јасухиро Јоцумото – роден во 1959. Поет, романсиер, есеист и преведувач. Има издадено 13 поетски збирки, меѓу кои и „Насмеаната бубачка“ (1991),  „Светскиот конгрес на средовечните“ (2002, Награда „Јамамото Кеничи“), „Попладне на забранети зборови“ (2003, Награда „Хагивара Сакутаро“), „Затвореник на Јапонците“ (2012, Награда „Ајукава Нобуо“), „Кап кап монотонија, неумешно, диво“ (2017), и „Роман“ (2017). Во превод на англиски јазик издадени се: „Семејна соба“ и „Песни од Минашита Кириу, Јоцумото Јасухиро и Сох Сакон“ (обете издадени од „Вагабонд прес“). Тој има објавено два романи, „Лажниот поет“ (2015) и „Поетскиот дневник на жлездата простата“ (2018), доследни на класичниот стил на комбинација од стихови и проза. Јасухиро е, исто така, активен во преведувачките води („Поетските дела на хомо сапиенсот“ – антологија на современа поезија од 32 поети во 22 земји, „Дете“ од Симон Армитаж) и книжевната критика („Шунтарологија“, дисертација за поетиката на Шунтаро Таникава, како и собраните есеи „За драгите поети!“).

Agron Tufa

Agron Tufa (born in 1967 in Sohodoll, Dibra, Albania) is a poet and writer and one of the best-known members of the Albanian literary scene. He started his working life as a coal miner. In 1989 he won a nationwide literary contest with a poem cycle that was published in the newspaper Voice of Youth. Following the collapse of Communism in Albania he was a village schoolteacher for a year until being accepted as a student by the Philology Faculty at the University of Tirana in 1991 on the recommendation of the Albanian Association of Writers and Artists. While there he founded with other young poets the group E për7shme. He was also editor-in-chief of Voice of Youth from 1992 to 1994. After graduating he studied literature and then translation at Gorki Institute in Moscow, Russia.

Dimitar Hristov

Dimitar Hristov is poet, playwright and translator. He was born in 1957 in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. He grew up in Sofija, where he graduated in Bulgarian Philology and Rhetoric from the Sofija University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. He has worked in the Bulgarian Writers Association, was the manager of Sofkniga EOOD, president of the Office of Young Writers. He works in the Ministry of Culture. His books of poetry were awarded with the “Vladimir Bashev” Prize and the Prize of the Bulgarian Writers Association and have been translated into Russian, Serbian, Albanian, Macedonian, Ukrainian, Polish.

Franca Mancinelli

Franca Mancinelli is the author of three books of poetry: Mala kruna (2007), Pasta madre (2013), and Libretto di transito (2018). The latter book has been translated by John Taylor as The Little Book of Passage (The Bitter Oleander Press, Fayetteville, New York, 2018). In 2019, the same publisher issued Taylor’s translation of her two first books, along with some unpublished poems: At an Hour’s Sleep from Here: Poems (2007-2019). Her new collection, Tutti gli occhi che ho aperto (All the Eyes that I have Opened), will be published by Marcos y Marcos in 2020.

Prospero Vega

Просперо Вега е роден во Њујорк, и пораснал во Бруклин (Бушвик) во 80-тите и 90-тите години на минатиот век. Тој е фотограф, режисер и писател. Неговите дела се објавени во антологијата „Ноќи во Бушвик“, а бил продуцент и режисер на кратки филмови кои биле прикажувани во странство како, на пример, „За една недела“, кој бил прикажан на Лондонскиот филмски фестивал (ВБ) и Филмскиот фестивал „Хавана“ (Куба), филмот „Мојата империја“ прикажан на Филмскиот фестивал „Трибека“ (САД), и филмот „Портите“ прикажан на Бруклинскиот филмски фестивал (САД), од кои последните два филма биле снимени заедно со Тед Цисилски, како и „Фамилијарен одмор“, прикажан на Филмскиот фестивал за латиноамерикански филм во Њујорк (САД). Неговата најнова книга „Момците од Луси“ е неговата прва белетристичка збирка песни. Дејството се случува во Бушвик кон крајот на деведесеттите години од минатиот век и почетокот на двеилјадитите години. Збирката е еден безрезервен приказ на животот во централното градско јадро на Бруклин, по смената на градоначалникот Џулијани. Во моментов, тој работи на документарно-есејски филм кој се снима на 35mm камера за неговото старо соседство и промените кои се случувале од неговото детство, а сега прераснале во тековниот хаотичен социјален и урбан предел.

Vanja Izova-Veleva

Vanja Izova-Veleva – born in 1972. Graduated at the University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje, department of Macedonian literature with South Slavic literature. Has earned her masters at the Institute for Macedonian Literature, earning a degree in Literary Culturology. Winner of the following awards: first place at the “Linden holiday” manifestation, third place from the International Society of Poets (2005), second place at the 25th Karaman Meetings, award in the Garavi sokak book at the 19th International Poetry Meeting in 2008, as well as the municipal award Holy Fifteen Tiberiopolis Martyrs in Strumica, for notable contributions in the field of culture and education in 2015. Her poetry has been published in many magazines in different languages. Her poems have been part of numerous poetic and prose books, and she is the author of the following works: A valve in the existence 1993, Death of the fish 1995, Stitched up throats1997, Dust does not speak 2002, Cry in a box 2007, Upside-down abyss 2010, Several legends about Struma 2011 (prose), Borrowed dust 2013, Woman and stone 2013 (prose), Almost2015 (Selected poetry) and Tightrope 2017. Member of the Macedonian Writers’ Association since 1995, member of the international poetry association, member of the presidium of the WMA 2000-2002 and 2002-2004, member of the jury for the Аco Shopov Award and member of the jury for the Aco Karamanov Award.

Karen McCarthy Woolf

Born in London to English and Jamaican parents, Karen McCarthy Woolf is a poet whose first collection An Aviary of Small Birds was shortlisted for the Forward and Jerwood Prizes. Her second, Seasonal Disturbances is a ‘witty and nuanced’ (BBC Arts) take on nature, migration, the city and the sacred and was written while she was Writer in Residence at the UK’s National Maritime Museum. She is currently a Fulbright postdoctoral scholar and writer-in-residence at the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the University of California, Los Angeles to pursue research exploring how poetry combines with international law to express safe spaces in complex environments. Her work has been translated into Turkish, Swedish, Italian and Spanish, made into poetry film, exhibited on the London Underground, and dropped from a helicopter over the Houses of Parliament.

Petar Matovic

Petar Matović is a Serbian poet and essayist. Born in 1978 in Požega, Serbia, he has graduated from Belgrade University, Faculty of Philology with a degree in Serbian Literature. He has published four poetry books: Kamerni komadi (Chamber Pieces), 1997; Koferi Džima Džarmuša (Suitcases of Jim Jarmusch), 2009 (Walizki Jima Jarmusha, Poland, 2011; Les maletes de Jim Jarmusch, Spain, 2013); Odakle dolaze dabrovi (Where the Beavers Come From), 2013; Iz srećne republike (From the Happy Republic), 2017. His work has been published in a number of poetry anthologies, and he has participated in several poetry festivals in the Balkan region and abroad. Matovic’s poetry is translated to Polish, English, German, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish, Galician, Macedonian, Slovenian, Hungarian, Swedish, Romanian, Slovak, Italian, French… His work has been published in renowned magazines and awarded a number of prizes such as ‘Treci Trg’ and ‘Branko Miljkovic’. Matovic has won scholarships and writer-in-residence in Gauda Polonia (2013), Baltic Center for Writers and Translators, Visby, Sweden (2015), Traduki Network, Split (2016), Artist-in-Residence KulturKontakt, Austria (2017), and Q21, Vienna, Austria (2017).

Annelisa Alleva

Annelisa Alleva was born in Rome, where she lives. She was graduated in Russian Language and Literature at the University La Sapienza, Rome, in 1980. She won different scholarships from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: in Brno (1978), in Prague (1978-79), in Leningrad (1981-82), in Warsaw (1983), Ohrid (1984, 1986). She has published nine books of poetry: Mesi [Months], 1996; Chi varca questa porta [Who Comes Through this Door], 1998; Lettera in forma di sonetto [Letter in the Form of a Sonnet], 1998; Astri e sassi [Stars and Stones], 1999; Aria di cerimonia [Air of Ceremony] , 2000, L’oro ereditato [The Inherited Gold] , 2002, Istinto e spettri [Instinct and Ghosts], 2003, La casa rotta [The Broken House], 2010, Sandro Penna Prize 2010, Caratteri [Characters], 2018, Viareggio Giuria Prize 2019. In Russian: A memoria/Naizust’ [By heart], an anthology of poetry in Italian and in Russian by the publishing house Puškinskij Fond, Saint Petersbourg, 2016; In English: Poesie scelte/Selected poems, Gradiva Editions, USA, introduction by Paolo Febbraro, 2020. In 2013 A. Alleva published a book of her essays and memories: Lo spettacolo della memoria [The Memory Show]. She has held many readings of her poems in Italy and abroad in New York, Johnson in Vermont, San Paulo in Brazil, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Tbilisi and Batumi in Georgia, Edimburgh, Luxembourg, Bucharest, Beijing. In June 2002 she was invited to be a visiting writer at the Vermont Studio Center in the USA. In January 2008 she was invited to spend a month in Hawthornden Castle, a writer’s retreat in Scotland. From 2004 until 2007 she taught at the University of Rome «La Sapienza» in a Master’s program in Literary Translation. A translator from Russian to Italian, among her most important works: Pushkin’s complete prose works in 1990 and poems Poesie d’amore e epigrammi [Love poems and Epigrams], 2018, Anna Karenina (Russia-Italia Prize 2010 for the best Italian Translation of a work of Tolstoy’s), an anthology of contemporary Russian authors, Metamorfosi in 2004 and an anthology of 16 contemporary Russian poets, Poeti russi oggi (Russian Poets Today), Lerici Lea Moscow Prize, 2008. In the summer of 2010 Sergej Krasavin made a movie in Russia featuring her poems read in Italian and in Russian: «Poe mie, Poju moe,» (www.labirintolibri.com).

Mitko Gogov

Mitko Gogov was born on 11 November 1983, in Skopje, Macedonia. He writes poetry, short stories, essays and journal articles. He also writes haiku, senryu, renga and publishes them on the microblogging network twitter. His works have been translated and published in numerous anthologies, poetry books and journals for art and literature in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Egypt, USA, Argentina, Russia, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Kosovo, Greece, Bulgaria…  He has authored two books: Ice-cold Water, 2011 and Hidden Scripture, 2019 published by the publishing house Antolog. He has won several awards and recognitions including: “Enhalon” presented by the Struga Poetry Evenings; “Angelo La Vecchia” Prize in Sicily, Italy; Prizes at the “Poetic Literary Sparks”; “Poetry Slam” in Prilep; “Struga Waves” in Struga and many more. He is the president of the association for cultural development and protection of the cultural heritage “Context – Strumuca,”; An organizer of the global poetry event “100 Thousand Poets for Change”; A representative of the World Union of Poets and the School of Poetry – Macedonian Delegation; One of the founders of the “Antevo Slovo” and “Antevo Pero” Awards; Editor of strumicaonline.net and reper.net.mk.  He is a conceptual artist and has had several exhibitions, installations, performances, scenography and multimedia projects in Norway, France, Italy, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria… He organizes cultural and art events, collaborates with youth, art, film and theatre festivals. He is a blogger, always open for communication.

Gligor Stojkovski

He was born in Volkovija, Gostivar, on 7 August 1952. He is a journalist, editor, poet, publicist. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy (South Slavic Literatures) in Skopje. He worked in Nova Makedonija (1976-1999) as a journalist, editor of the Cultural Section and editor of the appendix Lik (1985-1998(, a journalist in Utrinski Vesnik (1999-2001), editor-in-chief (2001-2997) and executive manager of Cultura. He is author of many books fo poetry and popular literature. He has been translated in English, Italian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian. Works: Respite in genuine good wishes (1979), Spider (1984), The bottom of the eye (1990), Blood-stained dawns – how Koco Racin was killed (1992), A cold minute (1993), The earth will open itself (1996), Behind the herb-silence (1995), A forgotten eye in the sky (1997), The Drop Lead Water (selection, 2008).

Hristo Petreski

Christopher Merrill

Christopher Merrill has published six collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and translations; and six books of nonfiction, among them, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War, and Self-Portrait with Dogwood.  His writings have been translated into nearly forty languages; his journalism appears widely; his honors include a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, numerous translation awards, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial and Ingram Merrill Foundations. As director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa since 2000, Merrill has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than fifty countries. He served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO from 2011-2018, and in April 2012 President Barack Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities.

Miroslav Demák

Мирослав Демaк е писател, преведувач и издавач. Роден е на 2 ноември 1948 година во Стара Пазова. Студирал на Филозофскиот факултет при универзитетот „Комениус“ во Братислава. По завршувањето на студиите во Словачка, работел како новинар, уредник на списанието „Nový Život“ (Нов живот), а бил и главен и одговорен уредник на детското списание „Pionieri“(Пионери). Од 1988 до 1993 година би директор на издавачката куќа „Obzor -Tvorba“. Во 1993 година се сели со семејството во Словачка, каде работи како издавач до 2013 година, кога и се пензионира. Демак е автор на следниве стихозбирки: „Од oтворена дланка“ (1974), „Зодијак“ (заедно со Вјазослав Хронец), „Меѓу два огна“ (1977), како и поетскиот избор „Реконструирање на Елсинор“ (2008). Преведувач е на околу дваесет книги од српски, хрватски, македонски, рутениски и германски јазик. Неговите книги се преведени на српски, германски, хрватски, романски и македонски јазик.

Miroslav Bielik

Miroslav Bielik is born on the 15th April 1949 in Ostry Grun, Slovakia.  He studied librarianship, pedagogy and economics in Banska Bystrica, Bratislava and Prague.  Miroslav Bielik worked in Matica Slovenska as a bibliographer, as a long-time director of the Slovak National Library and of Matica Slovenska.  Today he is the president of the Slovak Writers´ Society. He has published more than a hundred professional studies in the field of literary culture, he is co-author of the scientific edition in two volumes of R. Seton-Watson and his relationship with Czechs and Slovaks. Bielik has also compiled and edited several periodical and monographic editions. He has published collections of poems: Time is a silent messenger of thought (Čas je tichý posol mysle, 2003), Unsignificant movement on a steep leveled plain (Nepatrný pohyb po naklonenej rovine, 2005), At the end of one x-century (Ku koncu jedného x-ročia, 2009) and Melancholia (Melanchólia, 2018).  Much attention was drawn to his two-volume novel Venetian Diptych (Benátsky diptych - Reality (Skutočnosť, 2007) and Unreality (Neskutočnosti, 2010).  Lately he is engaged in writing stories, in the journal “Slovakian Views” (Slovenské pohľady).  His latest novel is Kaleidoscope (Kaleidoskopis, 2013).

Georgios Gianopoulos

Јоргос Jaнопулос е роден во Атина во 1961 година. Тој е поет, романсиер, есеист и преведувач. Од 1995 година е уредник на културното списание „ЕНЕКЕН“ и на наградувани книги од истоимената едиција. Објавил книги за филозофија, политичка економија, историја, политичка теорија и социологија, есеи за психоанализа, уметност, литература, поезија, романи и приказни. Во списанието „ЕНЕКЕН“ биле претставени стотици грчки и странски мислители, литерати, креатори од областа на политиката и културата. На неговите корици биле објавени дела од значајни грчки и странски уметници. Поетската збирка на Јоргос Јанопулос под наслов Route е објавена во 2000 година, а историскиот роман Тhe Black Book во 2003 година. Во 2010 година е објавена неговата поетска збирка со наслов Summer of Mortals и во 2015 година поетската збирка Words of Death and Love. Words of Death and Love се снимени во придружба на музичари од Солунскиот државен симфониски оркестар и објавени на ЦД. Неговите книги се илустрирани од уметниците Киријакос Лазаридис, Вили Гусиу, Крис Алаверас. Неговите статии, песни и интервјуа се преведени на повеќе јазици и објавувани во странство. Јанопулос го води Културниот центар „ЕНЕКЕН“, каде се одржуваат многу настани, како уметнички изложби, театарски и културни настани и симпозиуми за филозофија, психоанализа, историја, уметност и култура. Јанопулос превел и објавил во „ЕНЕКЕН“ поеми и статии на Влада Урошевиќ, Владимир Мартиновски, Николина Андова Шопова, Ѓоко Здравески, Томислав Османли. Снимил ЦД Poems on Holocaust во придружба на музичари на Солунскиот државен оркестар и џез-музичарот Христос Јерменоглу. Песните ги чита Јанис Фертис, еден од најважните грчки актери, а се заснова на преводи на песни за Холокаустот напишани од прочуени поети.

Azita Ghahreman

Азита Гареман е иранска поетеса, писателка и преведувачка. Родена е во Масхад во 1962 година и живее во Шведска од 2006 година. Автор е на 18 збирки поезија и романи кои се преведени на персиски шведски и англиски јазик. Во 2013 година ја добила наградата Swedish Pens Prince Wilhelm Award. Руските и украинските преводи на нејзините поеми „Полесна од воздухот“се наградени со „Малиот благородник Лудвид“ на Удмуртијската руска академија во 2014 година. Нејзиниот неодамна издаден избор песни Negative of a group photograph е издадена во Лондон во 2018 година од страна на Bloodaxe Books и е добитник на наградата на англискиот ПЕН центар.

Donika Dabishevci

Donika Dabishevci (1980) was born in Prishtina, Kosovo. She graduated  Albanian Literature at Faculty of Philology at Prishtina University, where she got her Master’s degree. She went to PhD studies at the Department of Literature - Tirana University, and her dissertation was “The Prose-poetry of the Albanian Literature”.  She teaches at a private university in Prishtina, and her professional experience is closely linked with the media field too, working for RTK for 13 years, now running and managing “GazetaObserver” for two years.  She has published five books: ‘Krizantema të plasura’ (1996), “Imazhe të brishta” (2004), “Proza e poetizuar - F.Konica, M. Frashëri, E. Koliqi, M. Camaj, M. Hanxhari” (2015), “Kam me ardhë si deka” (2015), “La tua robinja” Romë, (2017.)  She is member of Kosovo PEN Center and Kosovo Poets Club.  She presented her studies and papers at dozen of conferences and seminars related to Albanalogy and journalism.  Her poems were translated and published into English, German, Turkish, Swedish, Romanian, Bullgarian, etc.

Monika Herceg

Monika Herceg was born 1990 in Sisak. She studies Physics at the Department of Physics at  the University of Rijeka. Lives in Zagreb. Her poems have been published in various magazines both in Croatian and regional portals, as well as on the Third Program of the Croatian Radio. In addition to the “Goran” Prize for Young Poets, she has won the second prize of the international poetry competition Castello di Duino 2016 and the first prize of the regional competition for humorous-satirical genre "Stevan Sremac" 2017.

István Kemény

Поет и писател, роден во 1961 година во Будимпешта, Унгарија. Зад себе има неколку книги на унгарски (поеми, романи, есеи), а негови збирки поезија се издадени и во странство на германски, француски, бугарски, шпански, полски и романски јазик. Напишал и два романи: еден од нив е објавен во Виена на германски јазик. Последната негова збирка поеми Nílus („Нил“) е објавен во Будимпешта од издавачката куќа Magvető во 2018 година. Иштван Кемењ е добитник на неколку книжевни награди за неговите поеми, романи и есеи во Унгарија. Тој има 3 деца и живее во Будимпешта

Hava Pinhas-Cohen

Хава Пинхас-Коен е поетеса, преведувачка, уредник на поетски збирки и книги за уметноста, професор по креативно пишување и професор по литература. Хава студирала историја на книжевноста и историја на уметноста, и ги завршува своите дипломски и мастер студии при Хебрејскиот универзитет. Денес ја пишува својата докторска теза по книжевност за „Литературите“ на Евреите, на Универзитетот „Бар Илан“, каде има стипендија од претседателот. Од 1989 до 2008 година го уредува „Димуи“, интердисциплинарно списание за литература и уметност што таа го основала, и коешто промовира генерација поети и писатели коишто пишуваат со израелско-еврејска свест, коишто го продолжуваат и прошируваат еврејскиот „канон“. Во 2007 година ја основа „Кисуфим“,конференција во Ерусалим за еврејските писатели и поети, и е нејзин уметнички директор. Хава Пинхас-Коен досега објавила десет книги поезија и книга на дијалози за поезијата и уметноста со поетот Израел Елираз. Нејзиниот препев на песните на Роберт Пински под насловот Kissufim („Копнеж“), уреден од Мајкл Крамер, е објавен од Mishkenot Shaananim Ерусалим, 2013 година. Збирка на нејзините песни препеани на холандски јазик, Door het vlees stroomt het verlangen, е објавена од Amphora Books во 2009 година. Книгата на која соработувала со уметникот Анди Арновиц, Mother’s Prayer Before Dawn, е вклучена во збирката на Конгресната библиотека на САД. Bridging the Divide, збирка нејзини песни преведени на англиски јазик од Шерон Харт-Грин, е објавена од Syracuse University Press во 2015 година. Објавила и антологија на современи словенечки поети на хебрејски јазик под наслов I am burning and I cant stand the Silence, преведена и уредена од неа и Барбара Погачник, а објавена од Hakibutz Hameuchad во 2016 година. Добитник е на различни награди, а нејзините песни се преведени и вклучени во многу антологии низ светот.

Rafael Soler

Рафаел Солер (Валенсија, Шпанија, 1947) е поет, наградуван романсиер и универзитетски професор, заменик-претседател на Здружението на шпанските писатели (АКЕ). Објавил пет книги поезија: Los sitios interiores (1979), за која ја добил наградата Juan Ramón Jiménez во Шпанија во 1980 година; Maneras de volve (2009), Las cartas quedebía (2011), Ácido almíbar (2014, за која ја добил наградата Crítica Valenciana во Шпанија во 2016 година и No eres nadie hasta que te disparan (2016). Бил канет да чита свои песни во повеќе од петнаесет држави, две од неговите антологии се објавени во Јужна Америка, а некои негови книги се преведени на англиски, француски, италијански, јапонски, унгарски и романски јазик.

Nenad Shaponja

Nenad Shaponja (1964, Novi Sad), renowned poet whose verses are recognizable in contemporary Serbian poetry due to their stylistic perfection, hermetic quality and metaphysical insight.  Šaponja published a number of books: Poetry: Mona Lisa, 1990, Reflections of Illusions, 1993, Obviousness, 1996, The Sea, 1998, Four Poems, 2000, 2001, Sweet Death, 2012, Does the Touch of Your Soul Exist?, 2014, I Seem, Therefore I Am Not, 2017, I Step Down into Silence of the Weight of Rolling Dice, 2019. Essays:  A Baedeker to Doubt, 1997, Autobiography of Reading, 1999, Experience of Writing, 2001, 2002. Travelogue: Indeed Brussels is Easy to Cover on Foot, 2018. His poetry has been translated into Macedonian, Romanian, Albanian, English, Spanish, Polish and Italian language.

Faruk Shehich

Фарук Шехиќ е роден во 1970 година во Бихаќ, во Социјалистичка Федеративна Република Југославија. До почетокот на војната во 1992 година, тој студирал ветеринарна медицина во Загреб. Сепак, тогашниот 22-годишник се приклучува на Армијата на Босна и Херцеговина, во која води единица од 130 мажи. По војната, тој студира литература и започнува да создава свои литературни дела. Неговата втора книга Hit depot (2003) е апсолутен книжевен бестселер во Босна и покрај тоа што е поетска книга. Во оваа книга тој прави скици за неколку главни теми што се јавуваат во неговите подоцнежни дела, како што е повоениот живот на работ на општеството. Неговите поеми се за локалното (и глобалното) чувство на капиталистичкиот начин на живеење, измешано со очајничкиот повоен живот во урнатини, остатоци од мртво општество во Сараево и Босна.

Irène Gayraud

Родена во Франција во 1984 година, Ирeн Гајрo е поет, писател, преведувач и академик. Издала четири книги поезија: à distance de souffle, l’air (Éditions du Petit Pois, 2014), Voltes (Al Manar, 2016), Point d’eau (Le Petit Véhicule, 2017) и Téphra (Al Manar, 2019). Во соработка со Кристоф Милески да го превела поетското дело на Дино Кампана. Ирен Гајро, исто така, студира музика. Тој интерес ја доведува до соработка со неколкумина композитори на современа музика. Од 2018 година, таа е асистент по компаративна книжевност на Универзитетот „Сорбона“.

Ana Blandiana

Ana Blandiana, born in 1942 in Timisoara, poet, essayist and prose writer, civic right activist is almost legendary figure in Romanian culture.  She has authored eighteen books of poetry, two of short stories, seven books of essays and one novel that have been translated into twenty-six languages and grouped into eighty books of poetry and prose to date.  Blandiana was co-founder and President of the Civic Alliance from 1990, an independent non-political organisation that fought for freedom and democratic change. She also re-founded and became President of the Romanian PEN Club in 1990. Under the aegis of the European Community, she created the Memorial for the Victims of Communism (1993), distinguished with the European Heritage label.  In recognition of her contribution to European culture and her valiant fight for human rights, Blandiana was awarded the highest distinction of the French Republic, the Légion d’Honneur (2009) while the US State Department distinguished her with the Romanian Women of Courage Award (2014). She holds four doctor honoris causa awards.  Among the numerous international literary prizes, Blandiana is still the youngest recipient of the Herder Prize (Vienna 1982), and was awarded the European Poet of Freedom Prize (Gdansk 2016), and The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry (Toronto 2017).

Michael Hofmann

Michael Hofmann is a German-born, British-educated poet and translator. He is author of two books of essays and five books of poems, most recently One Lark, One Horse (2019). Among his translations are plays by Bertolt Brecht and Patrick Süskind; the selected poems of Durs Grünbein and Gottfried Benn; and novels and stories by, among others, Franz Kafka; Peter Stamm; his father, Gert Hofmann; and fourteen books by Joseph Roth. He reviews regularly for the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books, and teaches in the English Department at the University of Florida.

Karin Dée

Born in the medieval town Mechelen (1964) Karin became a kindergarten teacher. Doing so she combined two of her passions: small children and books. Her biggest passion was and is (writing) poetry. To develop her writing skills Karin was not afraid to attend a variety of writing courses. She also signed up for a renowned biennial course, ‘Writers Academy’ (2015 – 2016). Poems of Karin Dée were published in a wide range of literary magazines and anthologies in Belgium and The Netherlands. Many of her poems were selected in a lot of poetry competitions, and quite a number were awarded.   She is not afraid to put her poems on a stage, quite the contrary.

Asmaa Azaizeh

Asmaa Azaizeh Poet, journalist, and cultural manager based in Haifa. She won the Young Writer Award from Al Qattan Foundation in 2010 for her first volume of poetry, „Liwa” (2011, Alahlia). She has published two poetry collections: „The Woman From Lod Bore Me“; (2015, Alahlia, Jordan) and “Don’t believe me if I talk of war” (2019, Almutawassit, Milan), which will be published this year in Dutch by Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas. She has also published a bilingual poetry anthology in German and Arabic “Unturned stone” (2017, Alahlia). She has contributed to and participated in various journals, anthologies and poetry festivals around the world.  Her poems have been translated into English, German, French, Persian, Swedish, Spanish, Dutch, Montenegrin, Greek, Italian, and Croatian.  Asmaa has worked as an editor of print newspapers, a journalist and a presenter in various TV and radio stations, аs well as a teacher of creative writing.  Currently, she works as a freelance writer for cultural magazines, and as the artistic director of Fattoush store for books, and fattoush bar and gallery in Haifa, a space for music shows and visual art.

Ren Powell

Ren Powell is a poet, playwright, translator, theater-maker and teaching artist/mentor. She is a native Californian, settled on the west coast of Norway. Ren is a member of The Norwegian Author’s Union, and has published six collections of poetry, and more than two dozen books of translations with traditional publishing houses. Her sixth collection The Elephants Have Been Singing All Along was published in 2017. Her poems have been translated and published in six languages.

Anja Kampmann

Anja Kampmann is German poet and author of fiction. She was awarded the MDR-Literaturpreis as well as the Wolfgang-Weyrauch-Förderpreis. For her first novel ”High As The Waters Rise” (2018) she was awarded the Mara-Cassens Prize for the best debut, as well as the Lessing-Förderpreis. ”High As The Waters Rise” is highly poetical exploration of grief in the globalized world of oil rig workers and was also nominated for the German Book Prize. She also received the Stadtschreiber of Bergen-Enkheim Prize for both books, with the jury stating that “High as the waters rise” is not only a novel but can be read as a long poem. Her work has appeared in “Akzente”, modern poetry in translation (mpT), Poesia, words without borders, et al. Her first collection of poetry was published by Carl Hanser Verlag, 2016. Her new works include a performance together with a double bass player. She lives in Leipzig.

Damir Shodan

Damir Shodan  (Split, 1964), Croatian poet, awarded playwright and translator graduated from the Zagreb University, with a BA in English Literature and History. He has published several volumes of poetry, two collections of plays and an anthology of contemporary Croatian “neorealist” poetry. He translated Charles Simic, Raymond Carver, Leonard Cohen, Charles Bukowski and Frank O'Hara into Croatian. His poetry has been translated into more than 20 languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Korean and Chinese. He is one of the editors of the Poezija magazine and lives in The Hague, Netherlands and Split, Croatia.

Sanna Hartnor

Sanna Hartnor, born in 1986, lives and works in Malmö. Apart from being a poet, she works with music and stage performances. Her debut Hamnen ("The Harbor") is a tragic and humorous, contemporary depiction of a newly built, exclusive residential area by the sea. It is about gentrification, Scandinavia, architecture, moss graffiti, class, materials that won’t be domesticated, the ancient sea and its dark depths. In 2015 Hamnen was nominated for the "Katapult Prize", the Swedish Writers’ Union award for the best debut of the year, and in 2017 Sanna Hartnor received the "Mare Kandre Award".

Anton Baev

Anton Baev (1963) is author of a number of books in different genres: Eight books of poetry, six novels, two books of short stories, a book of philosophical fragments and two academic monographs. Some of his books – poetry and novels - were translated and published in German, English, Turkish and Macedonian languages. He has a Doctor’s degree at the Institute for Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Anton Baev is Chairman of the Board of Plovdiv LIK Foundation, Founder and Director of the International Poetry Festival Orpheus, President of the Writer’s Association in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and board member of the Municipality Foundation Plovdiv 2019. He has established a number of online newspapers, followed by the multilingual literary sites www.orpheus-plovdiv.eu and www.plovdivlit.com, where he has been developing his career as a writer, publisher, editor and columnist.

Jacob Polley

Jacob Polley was born in 1975 and grew up in Cumbria, in the north west of England.  His fourth collection of poems, Jackself, won the 2016 "T.S. Eliot Prize", for which he’d been shortlisted twice before, for his first book, The Brink (2003), and for The Havocs (2012). The Havocs won the "Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize", and his first novel, Talk of the Town (2009), a coming-of-age murder mystery written in non-standard northern English, won the "Somerset Maugham Award". His work is published by "Picador", UK. Jackself was described by the judges of the "T.S. Eliot Prize" as ‘a firework of a book; inventive, exciting and outstanding in its imaginative range and depth of feeling.’ A poet of the uncanny and the startlingly lyrical, Jacob’s poems explore his rural upbringing, the forces of tradition and history, and the power of speech as it approaches song. Jacob has made collaborative work central to his creative life, specialising in large-scale art installations, films and performances, and most recently has written and performed work for the radio and stage, including Lamanby (2017) and The Blackwood (2018), both of which were adaptations of material from Jackself, set to music and sound by John Alder and broadcast on BBC radio. Jacob is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University and lives with his family on the North East coast. This impressive oeuvre affirms the work of a brilliantly accomplished poet aligned with the English lyric tradition but also departing from it into new territory. His first collection, The Brink immediately marked him out as a young poet of considerable promise with the ability to unify a sense of the quotidian with other-worldliness. Jacob Polley’s website can be found at www.jacobpolley.com.

Satchid Аnandan

K. Satchidanandan is perhaps the most translated of the contemporary Indian poets, with 31 poetry collections translated into 19 languages including Chinese, English, Irish, Arabic, French, German and Italian, besides all the major Indian languages like Tamil, Kannada, Assamese, Odiya, Bengali and Hindi. His seven books in English translation include While I Write: New and Selected Poems (Harper-Collins, 2011), Misplaced Objects and Other Poems ( Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, 2013), The Missing Rib ( 2016 ) and Not Only the Oceans 2018) (Poetrywala, Bombay) . His collected poems in the Malayalam origina (1965-2015) in one volume (DC Books, Kottayam, Kerala) and collected translations of poetry in four volumes (Mathrubhumi Books, Calicut, Kerala) came out in 2016. His selected essays in six theme-based volumes are being brought out by Mathrubhumi Books. Satchidanandan writes poetry in Malayalam, the Indian language of Kerala, and prose in both Malayalam and English and has 24 collections of poetry besides many selections and chronological collections, four books of travel, a full length play and a collection of one-act plays, and many collections of critical essays including five books originally written in English on Indian literature. He was a Professor of English in Kerala , Director of Translation Studies Dept at IGNOU, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi and National Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.

Carmen Camacho

Carmen Camacho (Alcaudete, Jaén, 1976), besides a poet, is an aphorist, a literary critic and a creative writing teacher. To this date, she has published the following titles: Arrojada (2007), 777 (2007), Minimás (2008, 2009 -2nd edition-), La mujer del tiempo (2011), Campo de fuerza (2008, reprinted 2018). Letra pequeña (2014), Vuelo doméstico (2014), and Zona franca (2016). Las versiones de Eva (2014) is a personal anthology of her own poetic work. She has also published Fuegos de palabras (Fundación José Manuel Lara, 2018), an anthology of the 20th and 21th centuries poetic aphorisms in Spanish. As an anthologist she has edited Seré bre/ Aforismos poéticos y otras breverías (Universidad de Sevilla, 2015) and 10 poetas jóvenes desde Andalucía, published by UNAM (Universidad Autónoma de México) for the 2006 Guadalajara International Book Fair. In 2011 she was awarded the Premio Iberoamericano Fernando Quiñones. Her work has been translated into seven languages and included in relevant contemporary Spanish anthologies of poetry and aphorisms. She is a member of the editorial board of the poetry publication Nayagua (Fundación Centro de Poesía José Hierro) and of the Spanish aphorism annual directory published by Libros al Albur, Apeadero de Aforistas. Due to her deep interest in the dialogue between poetry and the arts, she has designed scenic poetry shows, written dramatizations and carried out collaboration projects with photographers, painters, musicians and other artists. In a 2015 collaboration with the rock band Pony Bravo, she wrote the dramatization of Alessandro Baricco’s Omero, Iliade, premiered at Itálica’s Roman theatre, Sevilla, in which she played Helen of Troy. She is currently working on a spoken word show in collaboration with punk rock musician Dogo

Arian Leka

Arian Leka (1966) writes poetry, prose, essays and children’s literature. He also translates, mainly from English and Italian. For his works Arian Leka received literary awards from the Albanian Writers Union (2000, 2002) and by the Albanian Ministry of Culture (2005, 2009, 2011). His short story “Brothers of the Blade was published in “Best European Fiction 2011”. Arian Leka is the founder of Int. Literature Festival “POETEKA” and Editor of “Poeteka Review” - EUROZINE Partner. Works of his are published into German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Chinese. Arian Leka holds a PhD in Literature. He is a lecturer at the Fine Arts Tirana’s University.

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski (1984), poet and musician, member of the psychedelic post punk band “Trupa Trupa“. Published six books: Przeprawa 2008, Eine Kleine Todesmusik 2009, Osłabić 2010, Radości 2013, Spalanie 2015, Sową 2017 in the best Polish publishing house – Biuro Literackie. Translated into English (Marek Kazmierski – Powinni się nie urodzić / They Should Not Have Been Born – the first trilogy of books) and German (Bernhard Hartmann – the new trilogy of books).  The beneficiary of the "Artist in Residence" Scholarship (Kulturkontakt Austria, 2016), International House of Writers Graz Scholarship (2015, Austria), „Styria Artist in Residence” Scholarship (2017, Austria), „Writers in Residence – Marko Marulić” Scholarship (2017, Croatia).”  Guest of international literary festivals - Oslo internasjonale poesifestival, Lahti International Writers Reunion and Vilnius Book Fair.  His poems were published in many literary magazines: Modern Poetry in Translation, New Poetry in Translation, Poetry Wales, Lichtungen, Ostragehege.  His music was reviewed and broadcasted by the bigest world music outlets - Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, NPR, BBC and more. 

Anna Santoliquido

Ана Сантоликвидо е родена во Форенца, во провинцијата Потенца, Италија. Дипломира како филолог по странски јазици при Универзитетот во Бари. Работела како професор по англиски јазик, но и предавала на универзитетот Бари. Ана е поет, писател и есеист и има објавено дваесет и една стихозбирка, една збирка приказни и има уредено бројни антологии. Нејзината драма Крстителот беше поставена на сцената во 1999 година. Таа е преведувач и промовира културни активности. Го основа Меѓународното движење „Жените и поезијата“, на кое е претседател. Нејзината поезија е преведена на дваесет и два јазици. Во 2017 година ѝ беше доделена наградата „Лореа Аполинарис Поетика“ од Папскиот Салезијански Универзитет од Рим.

Mia Lecomte

Миа Леконт е италијанска поетеса и писателка од француско потекло.  Меѓу нејзините најнови публикации се: збирките поезија Intanto il tempo (2012) и Almuseo delle relazioni interrotte (2016); збирката раскази Cronache da un’impossibilità (2015) и детската книга Gli spaesati (2019). Нејзините песни се преведени на многу јазици и објавени во Италија и во странство во поетски списанија и антологии; во 2012 година, канадската издавачка куќа Editions Guernica ја објави нејзината двојазична антологија For the Maintenance of Landscape. Таа е креатор и член на Compagnia delle poete (www.compagniadellepoete.com), театарска група составена од странски поети кои живеат во Италија, која изведува претстави сврзани со приматот на јазиците/културите и различните уметнички изрази во поезијата. Миа Леконт е преведувачка од француски јазик, критичарка и уредничка од областа на транснационалната литература, особено во однос на поезијата, на што го посветува есејот Di un poetico altrove. Poesia transnazionale italofona (1960 – 2016) (2018). Таа е уредник на антологиите Ai confini dei verso. Poesia della migrazione in italiano (2006), Sempre ai confini del verso. Dispatri poetici initaliano (2011) и коуредник, заедно со Луиџи Бонафини на A New Map. The Poetry of Migrant Writers in Italy (2011). Таа е член на одборот уредници на двогодишното списание за компаративна поезија Semicerchio и е соработник на италијанското издание на Le Monde Diplomatique. Во 2017 година таа ја создаде Транснационалната книжевна агенција Linguafranca (www.linguafrancaonline.org).

Alenka Jovanovski

Аленка Јовановски е поетеса, преведувачка, критичарка, есеистка и уредничка.  Докторирала компаративна книжевност и предавала на Филолошкиот факултет во Љубљана и на Факултетот за хуманистички науки во Нова Горица. Од 2011 г. е слободен преведувач и писател. Преведува современа италијанска литература и литература од англиското јазично подрачје. Авторка е на две поетски збирки: „Панталони за Џи“ и „Илјада и осумдесет степени“. Нејзината поезија е препеана на шпански, англиски и полски. Застапена е во антологијата на полски „Жена во обратен портрет“ (12 поетеси од Чешка, Украина и Словенија, 2013) и во американската антологија на словенечката поезија „Мост од гласови“ (2017).

Radovan Pavlovski

Radovan Pavlovski - (born 1937, Nis, Serbia). Poet, essayist and travelogue writer. From 1964 to 1982 lived and wrote in Zagreb (Croatia), and from 1982 to 1985 - in Belgrade (Serbia). Since 1985 he has lived and worked in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. Publications in Macedonian: poetry- Drought Weddings and Migrations, 1961; Korabia, 1964; Нigh Noon, 1966; Through the Crack of the Sword, 1971; Grains, 1975; Lightnings, 1978; Guards, 1980; Marena, 1983; Plague, 1984; Кеуѕ, 1986; Ѕоund Rider, 1995; Shield, 2001; With Оnе Еуе, 2002; Аn Осеаn in а Drop, 2008; I Аm Time, 2009; manifestos- Тhе Epic at the Polls, 1960, (with Bogomil Gjuzei); Manifesto of the Poetic Republic of Zelezna Reka, 1990; travelogues - Unlocking the Roads, 1986. Нiѕ poems have been translated and published in more than 50 languages and included in various anthologies of moden Macedonian, European and world poetry.

Gantsetseg Tserendamba

Gantsetseg Tserendamba is a Mongolian poetess who writes under the pen name  Gegeenhusel. She was born on the 9th of June 1987 in Arvaikheer, Uvurkhangai Province, Mongolia. Gegeenhusel is a prominent representative of modern Mongolian poetry, one of the leading poets of the youngest generation of poets. She completed her studies at the Faculty of Labor in 2008, and in 2011 she graduated Journalism at the Faculty of Radio-Television Journalism, while in 2017 she graduated from the Institute of Psychology at Ulaanbaatar State University and got her Masters Degree in 2018 . Works as a psychologist at the social institution "Children of the Sun" in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Vlada Urošević

He was born in Skopje, on 17 October 1934. He is a poet, short story writer, novelist, literature and art critic, essay writer, anthologist, translator, a university professor. He is a corresponding member of the international Academie Mallarme in Paris and a regular member of European Literary Academy in Luxembourg. He is a member of MASA, of the Macedonian P.E.N. Centre and the Writers’ Association of Macedonia (since 1961). He is a passionate researcher of the contradictory phenomenology of the literature and science fiction, of the mythological systems of the past and presence, of the irrationalisms in the oniric experiences present in the modern and post-modern narrative discourse, starting with the book The Net for the Evasive (1980), through Ariadne's Thread (1985) and Demons and Galaxies (1988) to Astrolab (2000). Thus, as an author, too, he grows in a poet and story writer of the fantastic, oniric, surreal. His first appearence was with the poetry book Another City (1959). His first novel is entitled The Taste of Peaches (1965) and his first story collection is named Signs (1969). Uroshevic fully represents the so-called third generation of Macedonian poets with his anthology selection The Black Bull of Summer (1963) and later on with essays and criticisms colledted under the title Contemporaries (1971). WORKS: Another City (poetry, 1959), Unseeing (poetry, 1962), The Taste of Peaches (novel, 1965), A Mannequin in the Scenery (poetry, 1965), Summer Rain (poetry, 1967), Signs (short stories, 1969), Contemporaries (criticism and essays, 1971),The Night Coach (short stories, 1972), Star Balance (poetry, 1973), Diving Bell (poetry, 1975), The Dreamer and the Emptiness (poetry, 1979), The Net for the Evasive (criticism and essays, 1980), A Unicorn Hunt (short stories, 1983), The Dream Compass (poetry, 1984), Ariadne's Thread (criticism and essays, 1985), Hypnopolis (poetry, 1986), Underground palace (essays, 1987), Demons and Galaxies (study, 1988), Planet in Panic (poetry, 1989), Aldebaran (notes and travelogue, 1991), The Mythical axis of the World (criticism and essays 1993), Risks of the Trade (poetry, 1993), My cousin Emilia (novel, 1994), Panics (poetry, 1995), The Court Poet in a Flying Machine (novel, 1996), Stories from Paris (notes and travelogue, 1997), Astrolab (criticism and essays, 2000), Wild League (novel, 2000); anthologies: "French Poetry - 20th century" (1972), "Black Tower" (1976), "Contemporary Macedonian Poetry" (in Serbo-Croation, 1978), "Cosmos in the Barn (in Dutch, 1980), "Tower" (in Uzbek language, 1981), The Great Adventure: French Surrealism (1993), Woods under the Sea (short prose form in the French Literature, 1994), A Golden Book of the French Poetry (1996), Sveven French Poets (2001) and Selected Works (2004).

Gordana Mihailova Boshnakovska

Gordana Mihailova Boshnakoska was born in Bitola (Macedonia) on 1st of September 1940. Lives in Skopje. She worked as an editor in the National Macedonian Television and studied at the University “St. Chiril and Methodi” in Skopje. She writes poetry (14 books). For her book Mountains of cardboard boxes she was awarded with “Brother Miladinovci” in 1998 at “Struga’s poetry evenings”, and for her book Poem on the hill she was awarded by the Association of Macedonian writers “Aco Shopov” award. She writes poetry, prose, literary critics, essays on fine art. She worked on TV shows about literature and fine art. Her poetry has been published in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Serbian, Slovenian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, etc. Her prose was translated in Chech, Polish, Swedish, Croatian, etc. She has been a member of the Association of Macedonian writers since 1965 and a member of the Macedonian Pen Center since 1970.

Mihail Rendzov

Mihail Rendžov was born in 1936 in Štip, Republic of Macedonia. He is a member of the Macedonian P.E.N. Centre and of the Macedonian Writers’ Association. He is the author of following books: A migrant of fire (poetry, 1965), Night growing of the word (poetry, 1967), Where from this side (poetry, 1968), On the brink of dream (poetry, 1972), Fear (poetry, 1976), Midnight (poetry, 1979), Nerezi (poetry, 1982), Auto-da-fé (poetry, 1985), Phoenix (sonnets, 1987), The Earth. Flood (poetry, 1991), Dreaming travelling (book for children, 1991), He (long lyrical poem, 1993), Deck of cards 33 (poetry, 1994), Eternal and endless (poetry, 1996), I oxymoron (poetry, 1998), Angela is dreaming (poetry for children, 1998), Psalms (poetry, 2000), Apocalypse (poetic drama, 2002); Zachariah and other stories (short stories, 2006), Galichica (poetry, 2007), Scattered. Collected (essays/notes, 2008); Harbinger (poem, 2009); Sonnets (poetry, 2010); Manuscript – Soulscript (poetry, 2011); Sighs (poetry, 2013); Ocarina (poetry, sonnets, 2015); Elegies of myself (poetry, sonnets, 2017). He has won numerous awards among which: “11th October” award and “Miladinov Brothers” award for his poetry book Nerezi (1982); “Grigor Prlicev” award for the long lyrical poem He (1993); “Aco Šopov” award for his poetry book I oxymoron (1999); “Racinovo priznanie” for the book of short stories Zachariah and other stories (2004), “Grigor Prlicev” award for Harbinger (2009) and “Miladinov Brothers” award for Elegies of myself (2017).

Guy Goffette

Guy Goffette was born in Jamoigne, close to the border between Belgium and France, in 1947. He lives and works in Paris. He has published over thirty books, among which the poetry books: Praise for a Provincial Kitchen, The Promised Life, Farewell to the Selvedge, Little Things for Absolute Days. His books have been translated in more than twenty languages. He is a prolifi c writer and poet and has published poetry, novels, short stories, essays, plays and two récits on Verlaine. He edits and writes forewords for various poetry editions. He has collaborated with encyclopedias which has enriched his knowledge both as a reader and a poet. He has won more than fi fteen awards for literature among which: Mallarmé prize in 1989, Grand Prix of poetry of the French Academy in 2001 and the Goncourt Prize in 2010. He works as an editor at the publishing company Gallimard.

Martin Glaz Serup

Martin Glaz Serup was born in 1978 and lives in Copenhagen where he is currently living with his family. He has published ten children’s books, five chapbooks (most recently Reading Places at Canadian No Press (2017)), as well as seven collections of poetry, most recently Roman Nights (2013) and the long poem The Field (2010), which is also published in USA (2011), Sweden (2012), Finland (2014), Germany (2016) and Mexico (2017). Serup has been involved in editing the literary journals Apparatur, Litlive, Hvedekorn, and from 2011-2017 a member of the literary blog collective Promenaden. He was awarded the "Michael Strunge Prize" for poetry, has received a "Gold medal" from The University of Copenhagen for his dissertation on "Relational Poetry", which was published as a book at the University Press of Southern Denmark (2013). In 2012 he was awarded the prestigious three-year grant from the Danish Art's Council and in 2015 he got his PhD on a dissertation on Cultural Memory and Conceptual Witness Literature. He teaches Poetics and Creative Writing at the University of Copenhagen.

Adam Zagajewski

Born in 1945 in Lvov (now in Ukraine).  Grew up in Gliwice, Poland. In 1963 moved to Krakow where he studied at the Jagiellonian University. In the late seventies was an active dissident and took part in the oppositional literary movement. In 1979 was offered a fellowship by the International Kunstlerprogramm and spent two years in West Berlin. Since late 1982 had lived in Paris. In 2002 returned to Krakow where he still lives. In Paris he joined the editorial board of the exile literary magazine “Zeszyty Literackie”. In the spring of 1988 began to teach a semester a year at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. In 2007 became a member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago where he taught literature one quarter a year until 2013. Received numerous international prizes; among others the Neustadt International Prize in Literature in 2004,  Zhongkun International Poetry Prize (Beijing, 2013), the Princess of Asturias Prize in Literature, 2017. Poetry: Communiqué (Komunikat, 1972); Meat Shops (Sklepy mięsne, 1975); Letter. Ode to Multiplicity (List. Oda do wielości, 1982); To go to Lvov (Jechać do Lwowa, 1985); Canvas (Płótno, 1990); Fiery Land (Ziemia ognista, 1994); Desire (Pragnienie, 1999); Return (Powrót, 2003); Antennas (Anteny, 2005); Invisible Hand (Niewidzialna ręka, 2009); Asymmetry (Asymetria, 2014).  Prose—Essays: The Unrepresented World (Świat nie przedstawiony) (coauthor: Julian Kornhauser, 1974); Second Wind (Drugi oddech, 1978); Solidarity and Solitude (Solidarność i samotność, 1986); Two Cities (Dwa miasta, 1991); In the Beauty of Others (W cudzym pięknie, 1998); In defence of Fervour (Obrona żarliwości, 2002); The Poet Talks to the Philospher (Poeta rozmawia z filozofem, 2007); Slight Exaggeration (Lekka przesada, 2011); Poetry for Beginners (Poezja dla początkujących, 2017).

Ana Brnardić

Ana Brnardić was born in Zagreb in 1980. She has published four books of poetry that received several prestigious Croatian awards for poetry: “Pisaljka nekog mudraca” (The Pen of a Sage, 1998.); “Valcer zmija” (The Snake Waltz, 2005.); “Postanak ptica” (The Creation of Birds, 2009); “Uzbrdo” (Uphill, 2015). Her two books were published abroad: “Hotel cu muzicieni” (Bucharest, Romania, 2009; translated into Romanian by Dumitru M. Ion); “Fåglarnas tillblivelse” (“Postanak ptica”; Rámus förlag, Malmö, Sweden, 2016., translated into Swedish by Djordje Zarkovic.).

Vladimir Levchev

Vladimir Levchev, born October 17, 1957, in Sofia, is a Bulgarian poet and writer. He is the author of 15 books of poetry published in Bulgaria, five in the United States, one in Macedonia, one in Italy, and three novels. In 1994 he won a Fulbright scholarship. Levchev received an MFA in creative writing from American University in Washington, DC. During his stay in the US, Levchev taught literature and writing at several universities. He is also a translator of poetry and journalist. Levchev is an Associate Professor of Literature and Writing at the American University in Bulgaria.

Josef Straka

Josef Straka was born on 1 December 1972 in Jablonec nad Nisou and has authored two collections of poetry and…other times (G Tisk, Liberec) and Why (TVAR, Prague), which were published in the 90s, as well as four books combining poetry and prose: Hotel Bristol (2004), Mons City (2005), Church in the Mist (2008) and most recently (in September 2014) Small Exiles – all published at Cherm Publishing, Prague-Zbraslav. He has published in numerous literary and cultural journals, both in Czechia and abroad, his texts have been translated into English, German, Polish, Serbian, Slovenian, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Romanian and Spanish. They are currently being translated into Portuguese and French. He’s taken part in a few international poetry, including the Treci Trg festival in Belgrade (2008), the Smederevo Poetry Autumn (Serbia, 2009), and International Prague Microfestival.

Tatev Chakhian

Tatev Chakhian is an Armenian poet, born in 1992 in Yerevan, currently lives in Poland. After several years of collaborative poetry projects, in 2016 she has published her first volume of poetry titled “unIDentical”. The book has been nominated for the 2018 European Poet of Freedom – the 5th edition of the Literary Award of the City of Gdansk and has been published in Polish. Selections of her poetry have been translated into numerous languages and have been published in international anthologies in Germany, Austria, Poland, Iran, Russia, Canada, Lebanon, etc. Chakhian’s artistic activities are being crossed to poetry in form of mixed-media art, she collaborates with urban artists, filmmakers, musicians and herself makes collages based on poetry. Being graduated from the faculty of Cultural Anthropology at Yerevan State University, her academic interest is the urban semiotics, “reading” the cities as text.

John Mateer

Born in South Africa, John Mateer lives in Australia. His books have appeared in South Africa, Australia, Austria, Portugal, Japan, Macau, Sumatra and the UK. His most recent work is Unbelievers, or The Moor, a volume about cultural vestige in Iberia and the Indian Ocean periphery. He has read his work at festivals in Europe, Asia and Africa, including at PEN's Free the Word! Festival in London. His poetry includes: João; Emptiness: Asian Poems 1998-2012; Unbelievers, or 'The Moor'; Southern Barbarians; The West: Australian Poems 1989-2009. His prose includes: The Quiet Slave: a History in Eight Episodes; Semar's Cave: an Indonesian Journal.

Mile Stojić

Mile Stojić was born in Dragićina (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 1955. He is a poet, essayist, analyst and journalist. He earned a degree in South Slavic languages and literature from the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. Until June 1992 he lived in Sarajevo as a writer and an editor of literary publications. After that he worked at the Slavic Institute of Vienna University with the grade of reader. He has published fourteen books of poetry and eight books of prose and essays. His books have been translated into several languages and his poems have been included in all relevant anthologies of contemporary Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Croatian literature. He has received numerous awards. He is a member of the Association of Writers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croatian Writers’ Association and the PEN-club. He is currently working as literary editor for Radio Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Danae Sioziou

Danae Sioziou was born in 1987 and raised in Karlsruhe, Germany, and Karditsa, Greece. She got her BA in English Literature from the University of Athens, and then pursued an MSc in Cultural Management at Panteion University and another MSc in European History at the University of Athens. Her poems, articles, and translations have been published in various journals and newspapers (Teflon, Poiitiki, e-poema, The Books’ Journal, Thraka, and Brooklyn Rail among others). Her poems have been translated in six languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Catalan Spanish, Croatian). She was awarded the "Jiannis Varveris’ Prize for Young Writers" and was shortlisted for "Anagnostis Young Writers’ Prize" and "Women of the Year Prize".

Ermir Nika

Ermir Nika (1978, Tirana) has published critical articles about art and literature in the periodic press. He has also taken part as well as had speeches in some International Scientific Conferences, where he has talked about some important authors and the phenomena which occur through the traditional and contemporary literature. In 2006, in the International Symposium of Literature “Kadare, Universalism and Balcanism”, he was given a medal as one of the organizers of this symposium and its message “Universality in Kadare’s writings”. Among these years, has been participated and have published research articles in some different international and national conferences. His poetries and some of his writings have been published and translated in different cultural newspapers and magazines in English, French, Japanese, Romanian, Greek ,Arabic, Serbo-Croatian and Italian language. In its entirety, his literary work has always been treated and appreciated from the critics for its style, literary profile and his originality in his written work.

Marisa Martínez Pérsico

Marisa Martínez Pérsico (Buenos Aires, 1978) is an Argentinean-Spanish poet that lives in Italy since 2010. PhD in Spanish an Latin-American Literature at the University of Salamanca, Graduated in Letters at the University of Buenos Aires, she is a professor of Spanish Language, Translation and Literature at the Macerata and Guglielmo Marconi Universities. She has published five poetry books: Las voces de las hojas (Argentina, 1998), Poética ambulante (Argentina, 2003), Los pliegos obtusos (Argentina, 2004), La única puerta era la tuya (Spain, 2015) and El cielo entre paréntesis (Spain, 2017). She won literary and academic awards as the prize given by the UNESCO for an essay about the Cuban writer José Martí, the University of Buenos Aires award MostrARTE (poetry) and she was a finalist of the Pilar Fernández Labrador Spanish Poetry award. Her poems have been partially translated into English, Italian and Portuguese Language. Since 2014 she is the director of the magazine Cuadernos del hipogrifo in Rome.

Shimon Adaf

Shimon Adaf was born in Sderot, Israel, in 1972 to parents of Moroccan origin. He published three collections of poetry and nine novels. His third collection of poetry Aviva-No won the "Yehuda Amichai" Poetry Award in 2010, and his novel Mox Nox won the "Sapir Prize" (the Israeli equivalent of the "Booker" Prize) in 2011. He resides in Ramat Gan and teaches Creative writing and literature in Ben Gurion University.

Tiziano Fratus

When his natural family has been dissolved Tiziano Fratus began to travel, crossing and touching conifer forests in California and around the Alps where he perfected the concept of Rootman (Homo Radix), an everyday practice of meditation in nature, the discipline of Dendrosophy (Dendrosophia). Along twenty years of writing he has published books in prose and in verses, some by Italian leader publishing houses as Mondadori, Feltrinelli, Bompiani, Laterza, Einaudi. His poems have been translated into ten languages and published in sixteen countries. He lives in a little house in the countryside near Turin.

Indrѐ Valantinaitѐ

Indrѐ Valantinaitѐ (b. 1984, in Kaunas) is a Lithuanian poet. After graduating from a Jesuit gymnasium, she studied arts management at Vilnius University and at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. She published her poems in many periodicals, and printed her first book in 2006. Her first book, Of Fish and Lilies earned her the first prize in the poetry category of the 2006 "First Book Contest" of the Lithuanian Union of Writers. Her second book Tales about t Love and Other Animals (2011) has won the "Young Yotvingian Prize" in 2012. The third one was published in 2017 and is called The Short Movies. In addition to writing poems, Indre is a singer, a winner of several singing festivals and also she is a TV journalist and producer.

Sainjargal Nachin

Sainjargal Nachin is born on February 1st 1991 in UlaanBaatar, Mongolia. Poet, journalist and one of the leaders of the new generation poets of Mongolia. Graduated in 2012 the Faculty of social science of the Mongolian National University , in UB, Mongolia. Member of the Union of the Mongolian Writers and working as executive member of the Verification Council at the Union of the Mongolian Writers. He was honored with the title “Best poet of Love Poetry” in the 13th poetry festival called “White mountain” in October 7th 2010. Winner of the annual poetry award “BOLOR TSOM” (Crystal Cup) as best young poet, 2013. Published poetry books: Zurkh zusegdekh chimee (The sound of broken heart) 2010; Shine uner (New smell) 2012; Setgeliin Khets (The harmony of mind) December 10th 2013; Ai (Inspiration) December 16th 2016.

Morten Langeland

Morten Langeland was born in 1986 in Kristiansand in the southern part of Norway, he lives and works in Oslo. He has studied comparative literature, creative writing at Litterär Gestaltning in Gothenburg and fine arts at Oslo National Academy of Arts. He is a literature critic for the newspaper Klassekampen and is an editor at the small press H//O//F. Langeland has published four books of poetry since his debut Æ æ å (I am as well) in 2012. His books are in style all marked by a certain playfulness – from writing in his southern dialect in his debut to his latest book Zoonetter (Nights in the Zoo) which is a collection of broken sonnets. His books also include Bavian (Baboon) and Den egentlige kommunen (The Actual Commune).Langeland won the prestigous prize "Stig Sæterbakkens Minnepris" in 2016.

Ghayath Almadhoun

Ghayath Almadhoun is a Palestinian poet born in Damascus in 1979. He has lived in Stockholm since 2008. Almadhoun has published four collections of poetry, the latest “Adrenaline” in Milano 2017. In Sweden he has been translated and published in two collections: Asylansökan (Ersatz, 2010), which was awarded the Klas de Vylders stipendiefond for immigrant writers. He also authored Till Damaskus (Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2014) together with the Swedish poet Marie Silkeberg. which was included in “Dagens Nyheter” (the largest Swedish newspaper) literary critic list for Best New Books and converted to a Radio Play for Swedish National Radio. With Silkeberg, Almadhoun has also made several poetry films. His work has been translated into Swedish, German, Greek, Slovenian, Italian, English, Dutch, French, Danish, Spanish, Czech, Croatian, Albanian and Chinese. The Dutch translation of Almadhoun's poems, Weg van Damascus, (Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas) Amsterdam 2014, was one of the top 10 selling poetry books in Belgium for several weeks in 2015 & 2017. With renowned American artist Jenny Holzer Six poems by Almadhoun has been projected from 25th February – 6th March on the façade of Aarhus Theatre as part of “For Aarhus” a new work in celebration of Aarhus, European Capital of Culture 2017. And from 28th May 2017, four poems has been projected by Holzer on MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, USA. Also Three poems has been projected by Holzer on the night of June 15th 2017, on in the city of Florence as a collaboration with the city of Florence, between Holzer and the talented and artistic American fashion designer based in Milan Virgil Abloh, with his Off-White menswear show. Virgil has debuted his fall/winter 2017/2018 collection, with an elaborately orchestrated outdoor event in the courtyard of the Pitti Palace. Lately he had published together with the Dutch poet Anne Vegter, the poetry collection "ik hier jij daar" (Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas) Amsterdam 2017. Also, the book was one of the top 10 selling poetry books in Belgium for several weeks in 2017. Adrenalin a selection of his poems translated into English by Catherine Cobham released from Action Books, USA, on 15th November 2017. Adrenalin was at Small Press Distribution list of Poetry Bestsellers for three months - December 2017, January 2018 & February 2018. "Ein Raubtier namens Mittelmeer" a selection of Ghayath Almadhoun's poems translated into German by Larissa Bender released on the 9th February 2018 by (Arche Literatur Verlag AG) Zürich / Hamburg. For more: www.ghayathalmadhoun.com

João Luís Barreto Guimarães

João Luís Barreto Guimarães was born in Porto, Portugal (June, 3rd, 1967) where he graduated in Medicine. He is a Poet (as well as a Breast Reconstructive Surgeon). Author of 10 books since 1989, including the first 7 in Collected Poetry (2011), You Are Here (2013), Mediterranean (2016) - chosen as National Poetry Award "António Ramos Rosa" 2017 and edited in spanish - and Nomad (2018). He is also a translator, a chronicler and a blogger, mainly for his blog Ilimited Poetry (Poesia & Lda). His work is published in anthologies in Portugal, Brazil, United States, Germany, Austria, Italy, México, Dominican Republic, Croatia, Montenegro (forthcoming in Bulgaria), as well as in literary magazines in Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, United Kingdom, Macedonia, Brazil, México and the United States. He read at literary Festivals in Spain, México, Croatia and USA.

Radmila Lazić

Radmila Lazić - Born in Kruševac, 1949, lives in Belgrade, Serbia. She has published several collections of poetry: To je to (That’s That), Pravo stanje stvari (The Actual State of Affairs), Podela uloga (Casting), Noćni razgovori (Night Talks), Istorija melanholije (The History of Melancholy), Priče i druge pesme (Stories and Other Poems), Iz anamneze (From Anamnesis), Doroti Parker bluz (Dorothy Parker Blues), Srce medj zubima (Heart between teeth), Poljubi il’ ubi (Kiss or kill), Zimogrozica (Chill), In vivo, Magnolija nam cveta itd. (Magnolias in bloom etc.), and Crna knjiga (Black Book). Literary awards: “Milan Rakić”, “Đura Jakšić”, “Desanka Maksimovic”, “Vladislav Petković Dis”, “Vasko Popa”, “Jefimija's embroidery" , "East-West" and “Laza Kostić” She was the founder and editor of women’s literary journal Profemina. Feminist and anti-war activist. She is a member of the Serbian PEN Centre.

Cosmin Perţa

Cosmin Perţa is a Romanian poet and novelist. Born in 1982 in Vişeu de Sus, Maramureş county, he graduated from „Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca, the Faculty of Letters. He continued his studies of literature at the University of Bucharest, where he received his MA in contemporary literature and his PhD with a thesis on East-European fantastic literature. He published five poetry books and five novels. In 2014 he was awarded the title "Best Young Romanian Prose Writer". Fragments from his works are published in 13 languages. There are over 250 reviews on his writing in Romanian and international cultural journals.

Josep Pedrals

Poet born in Barcelona in 1979. He has performed throughout Europe, Asia and America, giving thousands of recitals in all kinds of festivals and cycles. He has been awarded in various contests of recitation, including the "Osaka International Slam" (2009). He has coordinated, from 2002 to 2015, the HORINAL (Obrador de Recitacions I Noves Actituds Literàries – Workshop of Recitations and New Literary Attitudes) directing poetry festivals and some poetry cycles. He has written several theatre plays. He was the keyboardist of the funky-pop band Explosion Bikini (1999-2004) and currently he leads the ironic pop group Els Nens Eutròfics. He was awarded with the “Lletra d’or” prize in 2013 (to the best catalan book) and the "Time Out Barcelona - Best Artist of the Year" 2014 prize.

Ida Börjel

Ida Börjel born in Lund, Sweden. For her books of poetry, including Skåneradio, Konsumentköplagen: juris lyrik, and MA, she has been awarded with several prestigious prizes and she has been translated into 21 languages – in 2016 Jennifer Hayashida’s translation of  "Miximum Ca' Canny the Sabotage Manuals" was published by Commune editions, Berkeley. Börjel currently works with the "City Fables Group" at Malmö University, exploring neoliberalist language practice and the ways that stories about successful life in contemporary cities are negotiated, remediated and circulated. She has translated Dalia Taha, Mona Saffar, Samira Negrouche and Solmas Sharif into Swedish.

Hussein Habasch

He is a poet from AFRIN, KURDISTAN, lives in Bonn-Germany. Born in 1970. He writes in Kurdish and Arabic. Some of his poems were translated to many languages such as: English, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Turkish, Persian, Albanian, Uzbek, Russian and Romanian. A selection of his poems have been published in more than an international poetic anthology. He wrote these books: Drowning in Roses, 2002. Fugitives across Ivros River 2004. Higher than Desire and more Delicious than the Gazelle's Flank , 2007. Delusions to Salim Barakat, 2009. A flying Angel (Texts about Syrian children) 2013. He participated in many international festivals of poetry, for example in Colombia, Nicaragua, France, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Germany, Romania, Lithuania, Morocco, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kosovo, Costa Rica…

Steven J. Fowler

Steven J Fowler is a poet, writer and artist. He has published 7 collections of poetry, over a dozen further art-poetry books and collaborative poetry collections. He has been commissioned by Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, Tate Britain, the London Sinfonietta, Wellcome Collection and Liverpool Biennial. He has been longlisted for the "Forward" Prize and been sent to Peru, Bangladesh, Iraq, Argentina, Georgia and other destinations by The British Council. He was nominated for the "White Review" prize for Fiction in 2014 and has won awards from "Arts Council England", "Jerwood Charitable Foundation", "Creative Scotland", "Arts Council Ireland". He’s been translated into 27 languages and produced collaborations with over 90 artists. He is the founder and curator of The Enemies Project and Poem Brut as well as editor at 3am magazine and executive editor at The European Review of Poetry, Books and Culture (Versopolis). He is lecturer in creative writing at Kingston University, teaches at Tate Modern, Poetry School and Photographer's Gallery and is the director of Writers' Centre Kingston and European Poetry Festival UK.

Yekta

Born in 1979 in La Vallée aux Loups, near Paris, Yekta is a French poet and musician. He has released four poetry books (Veilleur sans visage, 2009, Editions Le Grand Incendie; Registre des Ombres, 2013, Editions L’oreille du Loup; Le mangeur de reflets, 2016, Editions Transignum; Brisées pour l’étranger, 2018, Editions Petra). As a composer, guitarist, pianist, narrator and singer, Yekta collaborates to several projects linked to poetry. He has composed the soundtrack from videopoems. In 2016, he released his first piano E.P. which accompanies the book Le mangeur de reflets.

Adnan Özer

Adnan Özer’s books of poetry are Ateşli Kaval (The Burning Pipe) 1981, Çıngırağın Ölümü (The Death of the Rattle) 1983, Rüzgâr Durdurma Takvimi (The Wind Stopping Calendar) 1987, Zaman Haritası (Time Map) 1991, Veda Şiirleri (Farewell Poems) 1999, Rüzgâr Durdurma Takvimi (The Wind Stopping Calendar, Collected Poems) 2001 and He has worked as an editor for publishing houses and translates poetry from Spanish. His poetry has been translated into German, Portuguese, Romanian, Macedonian, Italian, Spanish and many other languages. As an important poet of the 1980s generation, he published the journal Üç Çiçek which established the poetry of that era. He also published the journals "Düşler", "E" and "Kaçak Yayın" and today he is publishing "Vapur Edebiyat". He has received "Cemal Süreya" (1992), "Dağlarce" (2017) and "Attila İlhan" (2018) poetry awards.

Pauli Tapio

Pauli Tapio was born in 1986 in the northern Finnish city of Oulu. As a child his family spent several years living abroad, in the USA, in Czechoslovakia and in the United Kingdom. As an adult he has lived in Helsinki, Finland, and in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has studied Finnish literature and Russian at the university of Helsinki and has worked as a literary critic, an event organiser and a translator. Tapio has translated books by such Russian authors as Sergei Dovlatov and Svetlana Alexievich as well as poetry by young Russian poets. He is currently employed by the University of Helsinki where he teaches courses and conducts PhD research into the formation of vers libre in modernistic Finnish poetry. Tapio’s first collection of poetry, Sparrows and Time, was published in 2017. In the same year it won the prestigious Helsingin Sanomat book award, given to the best debut work of prose or poetry of that year. In his poetry, Tapio takes an interest in the rhythms of the Finnish language. He is also very interested in the formal and stylistic conventions of different poetic tradition and he likes to adapt time worn forms and constraints into contemporary contexts whilst maintaining an engagement with the innovative contemporary poetry of his native language and other languages. Thematically, his first collection investigates the fate of modern individuality as it is caught in the convulsions of world history and world politics.

Anne Seidel

Anne Seidel, born in Dresden in 1988, majored in Slavic studies and Eastern European history at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen. Anne Seidel has launched various conceptual sound-art projects, poetry readings with live field recordings and sound captures with numerous artists such as Stefan Senf and Daniel Williams. Her debut book Chlebnikov weint (2015) was selected by Marion Poschmann for the poetry recommendations of the German Academy for Language and Poetry in 2016 and was considered one of the "Three best German poetry debuts of the year" 2015 by the "Haus für Poesie", Berlin.

Marco Fazzini

Marco Fazzini was born in Ascoli Piceno, Italy in 1962. He lives in Vicenza and is lecturer at the University of Ca’ Foscari, Venice, as well as a freelance critic and translator. He has published articles and books on post-colonial literatures and has translated some of the major English-language contemporary poets and published books such as:Crossings: Essays on Contemporary Scottish Poetry and Hybridity (2000), L’acrobata della memoria (2002), Conversations with Scottish Poets(2015), and The Saying of It (2017). As editor: Resisting Alterities (2004), Alba Literaria (2005), a book on poetical translations called Tradurre, paradiso dei poeti (2005), Son to the Ocean (2006), and a study on poetry and songwriting, Canto un mondo libero(2012). His major poetry collections are: Nel vortice (1999); XX poesie (2007); Driftings and Wrecks (2010); 24 Selected Poems (2014),Riding the Storm: Ten New Poems (2016).

Louis Armand

Louis Armand is a Sydney-born writer & visual artist who has lived in Prague since 1994. He has worked as an editor, publisher, art consultant & curator, & as a subtitles technician at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. He has published eight novels, The Combinations (Equus, 2016), Abacus (Vagabond, 2015), Cairo (Equus, 2014), Breakfast at Midnight (Equus, 2012),Clair Obscur (Equus, 2011), Menudo (Antigen, 2005), The Garden (Salt, 2001) & Canicule (Equus, 2013). In addition, he is the author of ten collections of poetry – most recently, East Broadway Rundown (2015), The Rube Goldberg Variations (2015; both from Vlak Records), Indirect Objects (2014) & Letters from Ausland (2011; both from Vagabond), & Synopticon (with John Kinsella; Litteraria, 2012)–& of a number of volumes of criticism, including Videology (Litteraria, 2015) & The Organ-Grinder’s Monkey: Culture after the Avantgarde (Litteraria, 2013). His poetry has appeared in the anthologies Thirty Australian Poets, The Best Australian Poems, Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets and The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry. In 1997 he received the Max Harris Prize (Adelaide) and in 2000 the Nassau Review Prize (New York). His screenplay for Clair Obscur won honourable mention at the 2009 Trieste International Film Festival. He is an editor of VLAK magazine.

Charles Simic

Чарлс Симиќ  е  роден на 9 мај 1938 година во Белград, Југославија. Во 1954 година неговото семејство емигрира во САД. Чарлс Симиќ е еден од најисклучителните поети на денешнината. Симиќ за своето дело е добитник на бројни книжевни награди, меѓу кои и Пулицеровата награда во 1990 година, меѓународната награда „Грифин“ за поезија, медалот „Роберт Фрост“, наградата „Збигњев Херберт“, наградата „Валас Стивенс“, а бил назначен како Poeta Laureatus на САД. Неговотот поетско творештво го сочинуваат книгите: Што кажува тревата (1967); Некаде меѓу нас каменот фаќа белешки (1969); Разградување на тишината (1971); Бело (1972); Враќање на место осветлено од чаша млеко (1974); Биографија и тажаленка (1976); Харонова космологија (1977); Класични игри од балската сала (l980); Острини (1982); Временска прогноза за градот Утопија и околината (1983); Избрани песни 1963-1983 (1985), Бескрајна тага (1986), Светот не завршува (1989) Книга на богови и ѓаволи (1990); Хотел Несоница (1992); Свадба в пекол(1994); Застрашувачки играчки (1995); Прошетка со црната мачка (1996); Си ја барам бељата (1997); Jackstraws (Игра со чкорчиња) (l999); Избрани рани песни (1999); Ноќен излет (2001); Глас во 3 часот наутро: Избрани подоцнежни и нови песни (2003); Избрани песни 1963-2003 (2004); Тетка Марула сакам да ти ѕирнам под здолништето (2005); Мојата нема придружба (2005); Тоа мало нешто (2008); Шеесет песни (2008); Мајстор за преправање (2010), Избрани и нови песни 1962-2012 (2013); Лудак (2015), Чкртки во мракот (2017). Симиќ исто така објавил бројни преводи од француската, српската, хрватската, македонската и словенечката поезија, а автор е не неколку книги есеи.

Habib Tengour

Habib Tengour, poet and anthropologist, born in 1947 in Mostaganem, lives and works between Paris, Constantine and Mostaganem. His works are published by Algerian and French publishers and poetry magazines as well((Poèsie...) His works are translated into German, English, Arabic, Italian, Dutch ... He translates poets of English language (P. Joris) and of Arabic language (Saadi Youssef, Chawki Abdelamir, Moncef Louhaïbi). He currently leads Franco-Algerian group ITEM / CNRS which deals with genetic and critical issue of the complete oeuvre of Mohammed Dib. His poetry includes the following books: Pearl to the soul; The Arc and the Scar; Shales of Tahmad II; That Tatar There 2; Traverser; Ordeal 2; The state of matters; Gravity of the Angel; Retirement; Caesura; Empedocles’ Sandal; Beautiful Strawberry; Seelenperlmutt; The Cinephile Ancestor; Exile is my Trade. He also writes prose and theatre texts.

Luljeta Lleshanaku

Luljeta Lleshanaku was born in Elbasan, Albania. She studied Albanian Philology & Literature at the University of Tirana and later she attended the MFA Program in Warren Wilson College, USA. She was a fellow of “International Writing Program”,University of Iowa on 1999 and had a fellowship from the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on 2008-2009. She is the author of seven volumes of poetry in Albania and eight other books published in foreign languages, such as: Haywire; New & Selected Poems; Fresco; Child of nature; Kinder der Natur; Dzieci natury; Antipastorale; Ponedjeljak u sedam dana; Lunes en Siete Días. Her poems are translated and published in anthologies and literary magazines in many languages. She is the winner of PEN Albania 2016 (From Albanian Pen Center), National Prize “Silver Pen, 2000” for poetry, and International Kristal Vilenica Prize (International Festival of Literature, Slovenia 2009). Her second American collection Child of Nature was one of 2011 BTBA (Best Translated Book Award) poetry finalists and her British collection Haywire: New & Selected Poems was shortlisted for the “2013 Popescu Prize” (formerly the European Poetry Translation Prize) by Poetry Society, UK.

Kim Moore

Kim Moore’s first collection The Art of Falling was published by Seren in 2015. Her poem ‘In That Year’ was shortlisted for the 2015 Forward Prize for Best Published Poem. Her pamphlet If We Could Speak Like Wolves was a winner in the 2012 Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2010 and a Northern Writers Award in 2014. She has performed at festivals in the UK, Ireland, Croatia and Holland. After working for 13 years as a trumpet teacher for Cumbria Music Service, she is now studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Nurduran Duman

Nurduran Duman is a Turkish poet who lives in Istanbul. Her books include Yenilgi Oyunu, the 2005 Cemal Sureya Poetry Award winner, and Mi Bemol. Semi Circle, a chapbook of her poems translated into English, was published in the United States in 2016 and further translations can be found in Asymptote Journal, Colorado Review, Faultline, Interim, and Eleven Eleven etc. journals. Her poems also have been translated into and published in Finnish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Slovak, French, German and Occitan. She is a member of Turkish PEN, and teaches the course “Sociological Analysis in Turkish Literature” at Bacheşehir University.

Ivan Dobnik

Ivan Dobnik, born in 1960, in Celje. He studied philosophy and comparative literature at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. He is a poet, essayist, critic, translator, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Poetikon literary journal. Major collections include: Zapreš svoje oči (You Close Your Eyes, 2003), Rapsodija v mrzli zimi (Rhapsody in Cold Winter, 2006), Zapisi z drevesnih lističev (Notes from the Leaves of Trees, 2006), Pred začetkom (Before the Beginning, 2010), Druga obala (Another Shore, 2011), Bolska (The Bolska, 2015) in Magični pesniški izreki (The Magical Incantations of Poetry, 2016). His poems have been translated into a number of languages.

Dejan Aleksić

Dejan Aleksić, born in 1972, is a poet, play writer and an author of chidlren literature books. He published nine poetry books and fifteen books for children. He was awarded with the most significant literature rewards and recognitions for his work. His poems and books for children were translated into several European languages. The literary works of Dejan Aleksic are present in educational and school curriculum in elementary schools and universities. He works and lives in Kraljevo.

Dinu Flamand

Dinu Flamand was born in 1947 in Transylvania, He was one of the founders of the Echinox magazine, which became for the following couple of decades the basis of one of the most important literary movements in the post-war Romania. His volumes of poetry started to appear in the seventies: Apeiron, 1971, Poezii, 1974, Altoiuri, 1975. At the beginning of 1989 Dinu Flamand was granted the political asylum in France where he worked for numerous media amongst which were BBC and Radio France Internationale where he still works today. Some of his notable works are : Viaţă de probă, (Life on probation)1998, Dincolo, (Beyond) 2000, Tags, 2002, Grădini,(Gardens) 2005, Frigul intermediar, (The Intervening Cold) 2006, the bilingual anthologies in French and Portuguese (Poèmes en apnée, la Différence, 2004 ; Havera uma vida antes da morte, Quase, 2007 Many national and international prizes have crowned his poetic work including national prize M.Eminescu. He was a diplomat to the romanian embassy in Paris thil 2014.

Ryszard Krynicki

Ryszard Krynicki was born in 1943 in Sankt Valentin, Austria. He is representative of the ‘new wave’ group of poets, formed in the late ’60s to oppose the Soviet regime. Due to his anti-government political activities, Krynicki was banned from publication for several years. He has published many books of poems, the most recent being Wiersze Wybrane [Selected Poems] in 2009 and Przekreślony Początek [Crossed-out Beginning] in 2013. Krynicki has also translated many German authors, such as Nelly Sachs, Paul Celan, Bertolt Brecht, and Reiner Kunze. He has received many prizes, most recently the Friedrich Gundolf Prize in 2000. Krynicki lives in Krakow where, together with his wife, he runs the publishing house a5.

Krystyna Dąbrowska

Krystyna Dąbrowska (born in 1979) is a poet, translator, and essayist. She graduated from the Graphics Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She is the author of poetry books: Biuro podróży (Travel Agency, 2006), Białe krzesła (White Chairs, 2012), Czas i przesłona (Time and Aperture, 2014). Her second collection won the prestigious Kościelski Award (2013) and the inaugural Wisława Szymborska Award (2013). Her poems have been translated into English, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Greek, French, Portuguese, Bulgarian and Chinese. They appear regularly in literary magazines in Poland and abroad, including Harper’s Magazine, Akzente, Sinn und Form, Quadernario LietoColle 2016 and Manuskripte. The selection of her poems in Italian will be published by Valigie Rosse in November 2017. Her translations include the poetry of W. C. Williams, W. B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, Thom Gunn and Charles Simic, as well as selected letters of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. She translated also two early satires of Jonathan Swift (The Battel of the Books; A Tale of a Tub, published in 2013) and The Thirteen Petalled Rose. A Discourse on the Essence of Jewish Existence and Belief by Adin Steinsaltz (published in 2014). She lives and works in Warsaw.

Linda Klakken

Linda Klakken is born in 1979 in Ålesund, a small town on the westcoast of Norway. She is a writer and a journalist. She started her writing career in her mid twenties, when she got accepted at the prestigous writing school Skrivekunstakademiet in Bergen in 2003. After being published in a series of poetry anthologies, she wrote her first book, the non-fiction travel documentary The Last Beat Poet, as a hommage to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the American poet and publisher from San Francisco. In 2013, her first poetry collection was published at Flamme publishing house. Mother, wife, slave (Mamma, kone, slave) was considered one of the best books of 2013 by several newspapers and literature critics, and is described as ”poems about being a queer, proletarian mother of small children in a post-Millenial Norway.” Her second book, Finish the book about your life (Skriv ferdig boka om livet ditt) was published in 2014. Her most recent poetry collection, Eight minutes (Åtte minutter) was publised in 2016. Apart from this, Klakken has received The Nordic Council of Minister’s scholarship for writers in 2005 and 2006 in Gothenburg. Her poetry has been part of numerous exhibitions, as for instance the Martin Tebus Collection in Trondheim Art Museum and in galleries in Oslo. In August 2017 Linda Klakken will publish her first children’s fiction book. It is called Stupid, stupid heart (Dumme, dumme hjarte).

Jānis Rokpelnis

Jānis Rokpelnis, born in 1945 in Riga, is a Latvian poet, essayist, writer and scholar. From 1963 until 1969 he studied psychology and philosophy at what was previously known as the Leningrad State University. He holds degrees in theology and philosophy, and is a qualified lecturer. He has worked as a professional writer, editor, a literary consultant at the Writers' Union, teacher of history of culture and fine arts, as well as held important positions in various organizations connected to literature, culture and cinema. Rokpelnis is a member of the Latvian Writers' Union and other literary societies, an honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, and has received various significant scholarships, awards and prizes, including the prestigious Baltic Assembly Prize (in 2000) along with many important national awards. He is one of the first authors of his generation to introduce the trends of irony and co-existence of various linguistic strata in his work, blending them into his unique lyricism and writing style. Rokpelnis has also edited countless poetry collections, well received by the public and recognized with awards. Rokpelnis is the author of 8 collections of poetry, a documentary novel, a fiction novel, collections of essays, a biographical work on the poet Knuts Skujenieks, a children's book, as well as a libretto, film scripts, articles, and various other texts. He translated many Russian poets. Rokpelnis' poetry has been translated into more than 20 languages, and included in many anthologies abroad. His books have been published in Russian, Lithuanian, Italian, French and English.

Hilà Lahav

Born 1985, in Zikhron Yaacov, Israel, Hilà Lahav is a professional musician and a poet. She has studied History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and early music performance for recorders at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Founder and member of several acclaimed ensembles, she performs early music as well as classical Turkish, Arabic and Andalusian music on the Ney (Turkish/Arab flute) and historical woodwinds, collaborating with performers and musicians to create bridges over time, space and language. Since 2005, Hilà's poetry has been published by the literary magazines Mita'am and Ho, and she has been awarded by the Hebrew University for several of her poem collections. Selections and individual poems were published in Italian, English, Arabic, German, Slovak, Turkish, Romanian and Spanish. For her poetry she has recently been awarded the Levi Eshkol Prime Minister’s Literary Prize (2016). Her debut poetry collection, Soul, was published in 2011. The poem Until the Morning – her second book of poetry – was published in 2014 and her third collection – Wooden Roof – is to be published coming december, all by Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishers.

Rolando Kattan

Rolando Kattán is a poet, bibliophile, editor and cultural activist. He has published five books of poetry and received honorable mention from the Ruben Dario Poetry Award. His work has been partially translated into French, English, Italian and Arabic and has come out in many magazines and anthologies published in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He was recently accepted as a member of Hondura’s Academia de la Lengua. He is currently president of the museum, Museo del Hombre Hondureño. Kattán hosts the national television talk show Economía y Cultura. He was the founder and co-editor of the project Leer es Fiesta, which consisted in the free distribution of one million books. He also co-founded one of the most relevant cultural projects of the beginning of the 21th century in Honduras, PaisPoesible. Rolando owns the most important collection of Honduran literary and history books in Honduras, and recently founded the itinerant museum Honduras Ex-Libris, based on his collection. In 2011, he received the Premio al Voluntariado Cultural collectively awarded by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Sports, the Embassy of Spain in Honduras, the Volunteer Program of the United Nations, and United Nations Developmental Program and has been selected as the 2016 recipient of the OHTLI Award, one of the highest awards given by the Government of Mexico.

Dimitris Angelis

Dimitris Angelis (Athens, 1973) has published six collections of poetry, as well as essays, studies and short stories. His collection Epeteios (Anniversary) was awarded the Porfyras Prize of the Academy of Athens and has been published in Spanish. He was Editor of Nea Efthini literary magazine (2011-2013) and he is actually Editor of Frear (National Prize for the best literary magazine, 2014). His poetry includes: Philomela, 1998; One more death, 2000; Mythical Waters, 2003; Anniversary, 2008; Confirming the night, 2011; A deer weeping on my bed, 2015. His essays and short stories include: On writing, 1998; Last Summer, 2002; Byzantine aesthetics, 2004; Ideological Trends in Late Antiquity, 2005; The sources of Byzantine Philosophy: The Meaning of Philosophy for the Greek Apologists, 2007.

Maria Seisenbacher

Maria Seisenbacher studied comparative literature, she is member of the literature group „Wortwerft“ (www.wortwerft.at) and Editor of the literary periodical „Keine Delikatessen“ She received various prizes and scholarships: Scholarship for Literature by the BKA (2016), Artist in Residence in Ptuj (Slovenia, 2016) and Rom (Italy, 2016), Wartholz Scholarship for Literature (2014), Startstipendium für Literatur by the bmukk (2012), Artist in Residence in Slovakia (2011), Hans Weigel Literaturstipendium by the federal state of Lower Austria (2007/08). She was participating at various Poetry Festivals in Europe (i.a. „Days of Poetry and Wine“, Slovenia (2016); „Trgni se! Belgrade Poetry and Book Festival“, Serbia (2016) She was published in literature magazines, such as „poet[mag]“, „Lichtungen“, „Sterz“, …). Book publications: Ruhig sitzen mit festen Schuhen. Gedichte. (Edition Atelier, 2015). bher(a). Gedichte. (Edition Yara, 2011), together with Hermann Niklas: Konfrontationen. Gedichte 2005-2007 (Literaturedition Niederösterreich, 2009). Maria Seisenbacher lives and works in Vienna.

Maria Clara Sharupi Jua

María Clara Sharupi Jua writes poetry in Spanish and Shuar, a language spoken by the indigenous community of the same name. Born and raised in the Amazon rainforest, María Clara's poetry mixes imagery from nature and the traditions of her indigenous culture, which pre-dates that of the Incas. María Clara's work has been published in numerous literary journals and books, including Amanece en nuestras vidas, the first anthology of poetry from Ecuadorian indigeneous women writers, and Collar de historias y lunas, an anthology of Latin American female indigenous poets. She has conducted poetry readings at various universities and book fairs, and is an invited guest at the 2012 International Poetry Festival of Medellín in Colombia. She served on a team of professional Shuar translators that edited the official translation of the Ecuadorian constitution from Spanish into Shuar Chicham. She is a member of the World Poetry Movement, and participated in the first International Colloquium of Indigenous Women Writers.

Federico Díaz-Granados

Poet, essayist and cultural promoter. He has published the following books of poetry: Voices of Fire (1995); House in the Wind (2000) and Roadhouse (2003). He prepared the following anthologies of new Colombian poetry: The Song of the Rain is Dark (1997), Backlit Inventory (2001), Twelve Young Colombian Poets (1970-1981) and Anthology of Contemporary Mexican and Colombian Poetry (2011). He is co-author of Open Garden (Anthology of Young Colombian and Uruguayan Poetry) (2005). In the year 2009 he was awarded the Álvaro Mutis Scholarship in the Casa Refugio Citlaltépetl in Mexico. He is a member of the organizational committee for the International Poetry Festival in Bogotá.

Ming Di

Ming Di (pen name of Mindy Zhang) is a Chinese poet and translator, author of six collections of poetry and four books in translation. She went to Boston University for graduate study in Linguistics before settling in California. She has won awards for diaspora writers, and recently a translation prize from the Poetry Foundation in 2015. She has translated four books of poetry from English into Chinese and co-translated four books from Chinese into English including Empty Chairs—Poems of Liu Xia (Graywolf Press, 2015) which was a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award in 2016. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Tupelo Press, 2013); received Henry Luce Foundation Fellowships in 2013 and 2014; served as one of the five final judges of the national Poetry Out Loud in 2014; and co-curated China Focus at Poesiefestival Berlin in 2015. She is a partner for Lyrikline in Berlin and the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She moderates the Beijing Translation Workshop—she divides her time between Los Angeles and Beijing.

Duo Duo

Duo Duo is one of the most prominent poets from present day China and the most original and innovative writer of his generation. He started writing poetry during the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in China and won prestigious independent poetry awards in 1986, 1987 and 1988 before leaving China on June 4th, 1989. He was in exile for 15 years as a result of being a journalist during the 1989 student movement and speaking to the UK press while doing a reading in London in June, 1989, until Hainan University in South China offered him a teaching position in 2004. His poetic styles changed before, during and after his exile days and was highly regarded by his fellow poets and poetry researchers. He has been generally considered as the most accomplished poet in contemporary China. He was awarded Chinese Literature Award from the South China Media Group in 2004, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature from the US in 2010, two achievement awards in poetry in China in 2014, and the New Golden Age Poetry Award in Mexico in 2016.

Anne Michaels

Anne Michaels is a novelist and poet. Her books have been translated into more than forty-five languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, and the Lannan Award for Fiction. Her novel Fugitive Pieces was adapted as a feature film. Her latest book of poetry, Correspondences, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2014. She is Toronto’s Poet Laureate." Bibliography: All We Saw (forthcoming Sept 2017), McClelland & Stewart, 2017; Railtracks (co-written with John Berger), Counterpoint, 2013; Correspondences, McClelland & Stewart, 2013; Sea of Lanterns (limited edition artist book), 2012; The Winter Vault, McClelland & Stewart, 2009; Skin Divers, McClelland & Stewart, 2001; Fugitive Pieces, McClelland & Stewart, 1996; Miner’s Pond, McClelland & Stewart, 1991; The Weight of Oranges, Coach House Press, 1986.

Kiril Kadiiski

Kiril Kadiiski was born on 16th June 1947. Poet, essayist and poetry translator, he was outside of the officially imposed literary criteria during the regime; one of the founders of the Bulgarian Samizdat and the first private publisher in Bulgaria. He has translated a number of French and Russian poets, including Villon, Moliиre, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmй, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Cendrars, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Bunin, Blok, Voloshin, Pasternak. He is the most often translated Bulgarian poet in France, where all of his literary works have been published in fifteen volumes. His books are published in Spain, Italy, Greece, Romania, Serbia and Macedonia. His poems have been translated into English, German, Swedish, Polish, Slovakian, Hungarian, Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, Turkish and Finnish. He has been awarded a number of Bulgarian and foreign prizes: Ivan Franco (Ukraine), 1989, European Grand Prize (Romania), 2001, Max Jacob international poetry prize for his collected works (France), 2002 Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters for achievements in the field of French culture. Member of P.E.N. Bulgaria. Member-founder of the Cap а l’Est movement of Francophone poets. Corresponding member of the Mallarmй French Academy of Poetry. Member of the Universal Academy Montmartre. Exdirector of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Paris.

Maud Vanhauwert

Maud Vanhauwaert is a writer and text-on-stage performer. In 2011 her first poetry album was published by Querido (Amsterdam), called Ik ben mogelijk (‘I am possible’). It was awarded the Vrouw Debuut Prijs (Price for female débuts). In 2014, Wij zijn evenwijdig (‘We are parallels’) was published, a book you can read as a poetry album, as a meandering story, or as a compilation of sad jokes. Maud examines creative ways to bring poetry on stage. She performed in different countries, won the ‘Frappant TXT’ competition (2012) and became finalist in the World Championship of Poetry Slam (2012) and in the prestigious ‘Leids Cabaret Festival’ (2014). Maud obtained a master degree in Literature and Linguistics at the University of Antwerp and also a master degree in the Theatre Academy of Antwerp, where she currently teaches.

Volja Gapeeva

Volja Hapeyeva b.1982 in Minsk (Belarus). Dr. Volja Hapeyeva is the Belarusian poet, thinker, translator and linguist. Her works have been translated into more than 10 languages. Participant of numerous literary festivals and conferences, prize-winner of literary prizes in Belarus, international residency scholarship in Austria, Germany, Latvia. Collaborates with electronic musicians, gives audio-visual performances. Writes poetry, prose and drama, sometimes books for children. 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. Member of the Belarusian PEN-Centre and the Union of the Belarusian Writers. At the moment Post-doc researcher at Minsk State Linguistic University (Belarus) and visiting associate professor at the European Humanities University (Lithuania).

Ivan Djeparoski

Ivan (Ivica) Djeparoski (b.1958, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia) is a poet, philosopher, cultural theorist and translator. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. He is an author of twenty five books: eleven books in the field of aesthetics and cultural theory, six poetry books, two poetry anthologies and also of six anthologies in literature and aesthetics, for which he was awarded the “Mlad Borec” (1984), “Dimitar Mitrev” (1993) “Paradigm” (2009), and “Brothers Miladinov Prize” (2016). He works at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje as a professor of “Aesthetics”, “History of Aesthetics” and “Cultural Theories”. He was/is head of the Institute of Philosophy (2004-2009; 2013- ), head of postgraduate studies of the Institute of philosophy (2010-2013) and secretary of Macedonian P.E.N. Centre (1999-2001; 2009-2014). He also translates (W.Blake, Y. Brodsky, J.Joyce, D.Hume, E.Burke). He was granted the “Grigor Prlicev Award” (1993) for a poetic rendition. His poetry and some of his essays and books are translated into several languages. Poetry books: Pictures at an Exhibition; Eclogues; Poems; Will for Thought; The Abduction of Europe; The Light of Mount Athos.

Goran Čolakhodžić

Born in Zagreb in 1990, Goran Čolakhodžić currently lives in Samobor. After completing primary education in Samobor and grammar school in Zagreb, he graduated at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University in Zagreb. He majored in English and Romanian language and literature. In late 2014 he wrote the volume of poems that earned him the Croatian “Goranova nagrada za mlade pjesnike” (Goran’s Prize for Young Poets) in March 2015. The book was published in Zagreb under the title Na kraju taj vrt (In the End the Garden) that same year. In July 2015 he won the frst prize of the Zagreb no-budget festival “Petrarca Fest” for the best sonnet. In 2016 he was selected to participate in the Versopolis project as a representative of Croatia. He has participated in public readings, discussions, various literary events, juries of minor literary contests, and other related projects. His poems have been translated into English, Romanian, Polish and Dutch.

Arian Leka

Arian Leka (1966) writes poetry, prose, essays and children’s literature. He also translates, mainly from English and Italian. For his works Arian Leka received literary awards from the Albanian Writers Union (2000, 2002) and by the Albanian Ministry of Culture (2005, 2009, 2011). His short story “Brothers of the Blade was published in “Best European Fiction 2011”. Arian Leka is the founder of Int. Literature Festival “POETEKA” and Editor of “Poeteka Review” - EUROZINE Partner. Works of his are published into German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Chinese. Arian Leka holds a PhD in Literature. He is a lecturer at the Fine Arts Tirana’s University.

Juan Octavio Prenz

Juan Octavio Prenz was born in 1932 in La Plata, Argentina. Since 1979 he has been living in Trieste. He has taught literature at the Universities in Buenos Aires, La Plata, Belgrade, Ljubljana and Trieste. He is a poet, writer, essayist, critic and a translator. He has translated poetry from Yugoslav poets into Spanish. His works have been translated into many languages and have been included in numerous anthologies. He has published the following books of poetry: Plaza Suburbana; Mascarón de Proa; Cuentas claras; Poslanice iz Novog Sveta; Apuntes de historia; Habladurías del Nuevo Mundo, (Premio de la Sociedad Argentina de Escritores); Cortar por lo sano; La Santa Pinta de la Niña María (International Award Casa de las Américas); Sreduvanje na smetkite,; Hombre lobo; Antología poética; Prostodusne malenkosti–Libertades mínimas,; Antologia poetica (in Italian) etc.

Violeta Tančeva-Zlateva

Violeta Tančeva-Zlateva was born on 25 April 1968 in Borievo, Strumica. She graduated in Yugoslav literature at the Faculty of Philology in Skopje. She writes poetry, short stories and essays. She has been a Member of the Macedonian Writers’ Association since 2000. She is the recipient of the “Miladinov Brothers” Award presented by Struga Poetry Evenings for best book of poetry in 2015. She has published the following prose books: A Book of the Dream (1991), Coming Back (1993), On My Way to Borievo (1999), Colourful Letters (2008) and the books of poetry: My Picasso (2007); Prisoners of Silence (2010); Fiery (2011); Our Story (2013), A Summerless Year (2015).

Alex Skovron

Alex Skovron was born in Poland in 1948, lived briefly in Israel, and emigrated to Australia in 1958. From the early 1970s he worked as an editor for various book publishers in Sydney and Melbourne, in the reference, educational, children’s, trade, and literary fields. Skovron’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. His six published collections to date are: The Rearrangement (1988), Sleeve Notes (1992), Infinite City (1999), The Man and the Map (2003), Autographs (a volume of prose-poems, 2008), and Towards the Equator: New & Selected Poems (2014), which was shortlisted in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2015. Other awards for his writing have included the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry (twice), the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (twice), the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize (2007), and, for his first collection, the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore awards. His prose novella, The Poet (2005), was joint winner (with Kate Grenville) of the FAW Christina Stead Award for a work of fiction; the novella has been translated into Czech and published under the title Básník (2014). The Attic, a selection of his poetry translated into French by Jacques Rancourt, was published by PEN Melbourne in 2013; and a bilingual volume of Chinese translations in the Flying Island series (Macao) is underway. Some of his poetry has also been translated into Dutch, German, Polish, Serbian, and Spanish. A collection of short stories, The Man who Took to his Bed, is due to be published by Puncher & Wattmann in 2017.

Nujoom Alghanem

Nujoom Alghanem is an Emirati writer and one of the most recognized female poets in the Arab world. She has published eight collections including: Evening of Paradise (1989), Sins (1991), Journeyings (1995), Homes of Pomegranates (1999), Indescribable (2005), Angels of Distant Yearning (2008), A Night Heavy on the Night (2010), I Fall into Myself (2012). She is also a well known scriptwriter and multi-award film director. Besides directing, she has produced and written numerous fiction and documentary films. She currently works as a film, media and cultural consultant as well as film instructor for educational and professional organizations in the UAE. Alghanem was born in Dubai in 1962. She holds an MA in film Production, from Griffith University in Australia and a bachelor degree in Video Production from Ohio University in the USA.

Jan Lauwereyns

Jan Lauwereyns (Belgium, 1969) is a poet and scientist. As a cognitive neuroscientist, he studies the voluntary control of attention. After obtaining his Ph.D. at the Catholic University of Leuven, he migrated to several places before settling in Japan, where he is currently Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science at Kyushu University. Lauwereyns has published more than twenty volumes of poetry in his native language, Dutch, and in Japanese and English, including collaborative projects with Leo Vroman, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Kiwao Nomura, and Michael Palmer. He has received several prizes and nominations for his work in Dutch, most notably the VSB Poetry prize 2012. Lauwereyns is Associate Editor of the Belgian literary journal DW B.

Erdal Alova

Erdal Alova was born in Ankara, in 1952. He published his first poems in 1973 in one of the most eminent literary magazines of that time- Yeni Dergi. His first poetry book Songs just published was published in 1980. Since, he has published seven poetry books: Giz dökümü (Mistery documents; 1989) , Bitik Kent (The exausted city; 1999), Dizeler (Lines; 2001), Tensemeler (Verses, 2007), Toplu Şiirler (Collected poems; 2008) Unutuştan Sonsuza (2014), Birinci Çoğul Şarkı (First plural song ; 2015). He has also translated European and ancient poets into Turkish: Neruda, Lorca, Cavafy, Sappho, Herbert etc. He is a winner of many national and international awards, both for his poetry and his translation.

Thiago Ponce de Moraes

Thiago Ponce de Moraes is a Brazilian poet and translator. He published the poems collections Imp. (Caetés, 2006) and De gestos lassos ou nenhuns (Lumme Editor, 2010). Presently, he finishes his PhD thesis on Paul Celan’s poetry and works as a professor at IFRJ (Federal Institute of Rio de Janeiro). For this year, he is preparing his third poems selection, entitled Dobres sobre a luz. Ponce has participated in several national and international festivals. As a translator, he prepared versions in Portuguese of modern and contemporary poets from Latin America and Europe.

Mária Ridzoňová Ferenčuhová

Mária Ridzoňová Ferenčuhová was born in Bratislava. She graduated in film Screenwriting and Dramaturgy from the Film and TV Faculty of the School of Dramatic Arts in Bratislava (FTF VŠMU). She completed her postgraduate studies in film history and theory and Sciences du Langage at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales in Paris. Currently, she lectures on the history of world film at FTF VŠMU. She is the editor of the film journal KINO-IKON and translates from French (Paul Virilio, Amélie Nothomb, Philippe Brenot). She published three books of poems Skryté titulky (Hidden Subtitles, Bratislava: Drewo a srd, 2003), Princíp neistoty (The Uncertainty Principle, Bratislava: Ars Poetica, 2008) and Ohrozený druh (Jeopardised Species, Bratislava: Ars Poetica, 2013). Her stories, poetry and translations were published in multiple periodicals and anthologies. Her poems were translated into French and English.

Gojko Božović

Gojko Božović (1972) is a poet, essayist, literary critic, editor and publisher. His books of poetry include: Underground Cinema (1991), Soul of the Beast (1993), Poems of Things (1996), Archipelago (2002), Elements (2006), Nearby deities (2012); book of essays: Poetry in Time: On the Serbian Poetry of the Second Half of the 20th Century (2000), Place We Love: On the Contemporary Serbian Poetry (2009); anthologies: An Anthology of Recent Serbian Poetry: The Nineties, The 20th Century (2005), Place We Love. An Anthology of Contemporary Serbian Poetry 1945-2006. (2006, 2011; in English), The World around Us. An Anthology of Contemporary Serbian Stories (2009). He received the awards „Dušan Matić”, „Brana Cvetković”, „Djura Jakšić”, „Branko Ćopić” and „Europa Giovani International Poetry Prize” (Italy) for poetry. He received „Borislav Pekić Fund Award” for essays. He is founder and Editor-in-Chief Arhipelag Publishing (Belgrade, 2007). He lives and works in Belgrade (Serbia).

Alexander Shurbanov

Born on 5th April 1941 in Sofia. Graduated in English language and literature at Sofia University, 1966. Since 1995 he has worked as Professor of English literature at Sofia University. He has taught Bulgarian language, literature and culture at many universities all over the world. He is Founding member and Vice President of the Association of Bulgarian Writers, the Union of Translators in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian PEN Center and Founding President of the Three Seas Writers’ and Translators’ Council. He has published nine books of poetry, the first of which, Tretata ruka (The Third Hand), published in 1974, and the latest, Otrazheniya (Reflections), in 2011. He has also published four books of essayistic prose, two quasi-travelogues and two dozen books of literary translations from English into Bulgarian, including Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, William Shakespeare’s Great Tragedies, Dylan Thomas, Ted Hughes, and others.

Justyna Bargielska

Justyna Bargielska (1977) is a poet and writer living in Warsaw. She was a laureate of the Rainer Maria Rilke Poetry Competition (2001) and the Jacek Bierezina Special Award (2002). She received the Gdynia Literary Award twice (2010 and 2011) and was nominated for the Wisława Szymborska Award and Nike Award. Her poetry has been translated into a number of languages, including English and Slovenian. She has published the following books of poetry: Dating Sessions, 2003; China Shipping, 2005; Dwa fiaty , 2009; Bach for my baby, 2012; Szybko przez wszystko, 2013; Nudelman, 2014; and the prose books: Obsoletki, 2010; and Małe lisy, 2013. Bargielska’s latest book, Nudelman (2014), contains dark and upsetting poetry, far from her old playfulness and lightness. She »takes on a new, stronger, at times brutal yet still poetic story. She reminds us that man is not invincible but rather breakable.

Tomica Bajsić

Tomica Bajsić is a poet, prose writer, translator and graphic artist.He has published four books of poetry (Southern Cross, Songs of Light and Shadow, Air Beneath the Sea , Mutiny of the Hanged), two books of travel prose (Two Worlds & One More and Amazon breathes) and a picturebook about the nature in Velebit (Ana and the Velebit Fairy). His poetry has been translated into twenty languages and has been published in numerous anthologies and literary journals at home and abroad. It has been performed on the radio, on TV and on stage.

Zhou Zan

Zhou Zan is a poet, translator, playwright, literature scholar and founder of Wings (a literary journal for women poetry in China). She got her PhD from Peiking University in 1999 and is now working at Institute of Chinese Literature in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In 2008, Zhou Zan co-founded Ladybird Theatre in Beijing with Cao Ke-fei. She is also one of the fundamental members of Beijing Flowing Fire Tent Theatre. Her works include poetry collection Turn Me Loose, Writing on Xue Tao’s Paper and Anti-portrait, critical essays entitled Through the Periscope of Poetic Writing and After Shaking off Silence. Her translation books include Margaret Atwood’s Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965-1995, Nina Cassian’sCheerleader for a Funeral.

Attila Végh

Attila Végh is a poet, storyteller, philosopher born on 13 February, 1962 in Budapest. He has graduated in Philosophy at the University of Debrecen. He writes poetry, short stories, novels, philosophical and literary essays, plays. He has published twenty books among which: The Prosecutor (poetry,1999), Light Value (film criticism, 2000) The Descent of Metaphysics ( philosophical essays, 2001) , Ode to the Non- existence (poems, 2001), Forbidden Construction ( poems, 2003), The Invisible Shore ( poems, 2004), The Snake Skin (dialogues, 2005), Ashy Mouth (poems), The Torso Gaze (philosophical studies, 2010), The Moment Their Old Age (poems, 2013), To Evacuate Your Heart (novel, 2014), The Book of Water (photos, essays, 2015). He won the Attila József Prize for poetry in 2012. He is the editor-in-chief of the culture section of the newspaper “Magyar Hirlap”.

Stéphane Korvin

Stéphane Korvin was born in 1981. He lives and works in Paris. His work consists of a photographical and pictorial exploration of projected spaces of the body, melancholic figures, and lands where life can be found winding within. His use of poetry explores daily life, looking at it from the inside out, leaving a very physical space for the body. He examines its contours and intersections, weighing the pressure of desire and questioning fear and the rustling of time. He is the founder of a creative literary journal called “Aka”, which he also crafts entirely by hand. In 2015, he established the publishing house BRÛLEPOURPOINT which re-publishes challenging, lost or forgotten books. Its first author published is Agnès Rouzier. Since 2016 he is part of European poetry platform VERSOPOLIS

George Mario Angel Quintero

George Mario Angel Quintero was born of Colombian parents in San Francisco, California in 1964. As George Angel, he has published poetry, fiction and essays in US and Canadian magazines. He was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, and a Nilon Award from Fiction Collective II. In 1995, he moved to Medellin Colombia, publishing poetry, fiction, theater, and essays in Spanish as Mario Angel Quintero. He has translated a significant amount of world poetry from English to Spanish under the pseudonym G. Leogena. He is also active in music, theater, and visual arts.

Leanne O’Sullivan

Leanne O’Sullivan was born in 1983, and comes from the Beara peninsula in West Cork. She received an MA in English from University College, Cork in 2006. The winner of several of Ireland’s poetry competitions in her early 20s, she has published three collections, all from Bloodaxe, Waiting for My Clothes (2004), Cailleach: The Hag of Beara (2009), winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2010, and The Mining Road (2013). She was given the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award in 2009 and the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry in 2011, and received a UCC Alumni Award in 2012. Her work has been included in various anthologies, including Selina Guinness’s The New Irish Poets (Bloodaxe Books, 2004) and Billy Collins’s Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (Random House, 2003). Residencies and festival readings have taken her to France, India, China and America, amongst other locations. She is currently teaching on the MA in Creative Writing at UCC.

Yolanda Castaño

BA in Spanish Language and Literature and with Media Studies, apart from being a poet, translator, editor and a very active culture manager, Yolanda Castaño has been a columnist and has worked in Galician TV . She has published 6 poetry books in Galician and Spanish (“Depth of Field” and “The Second Tongue” are her last titles), several chapbooks and a pair of compilations. A finalist in the National Poetry Prize, she has won poetry awards amongst which the National Critics Award, the Espiral Maior Poetry Award, the Fundación Novacaixagalicia, the Ojo Crítico (best poetry book by a young author in Spain) and the Author of the Year Galician Booksellers’ Award stand out. She is a relevant cultural activist, regularly organizing monthly poetry reading series, festivals, literary and translation workshops. She was the General Secretary of the Galician Language Writers Association and she has made her contribution to many written media, books, anthologies, conferences and many readings or multimedia poetry performances inside and outside Galicia, including many international poetry festivals and meetings. She has coordinated collective books, art and poetry exhibitions, she has published works as an editor, as well as five poetry books for children and four of translations from contemporary authors. Some of her poems have been published translated into twenty languages.

Haviva Pedaya

Haviva Pedaya was born in Jerusalem and studied at the Hebrew University and the Jerusalem School for Visual Theatre. She currently resides in Old City of Beer Sheva. Pedaya is a leading scholar and researcher of Jewish Mysticism and Jewish Culture, one of Israei’s preeminent poets, cultural critic and social justice activist. She is a tenured professor of Jewish History and head of the Elyachar center for the study of Spanish and Oriental Jewry at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. In Hebrew she has published the following books: From a Sealed Ark (poetry), 1996; Birthing of the Anima (poetry), 2002; The Eye of the Cat (novel) , 2008; Blood’s Ink (poetry), 2009; Imprints (Novel), 2014; Early and Late (poetry), 2015; Hell Is Paradise in Reverse Gear (poetry), 2016. She has won the Harry Hershon Prize for Poetry and Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1989). For the book From a Sealed Ark she has won The President’s Literary Award (2004) and The Achi Foundation Award (2005). For the book Blood’s Ink she has won The Amichai Award (2012).

Laura Accerboni

Laura Accerboni (1985) was born in Genova, lives in Lugano. She graduated in Modern Literature at the University of Genoa. Her poems have been published in several literary reviews. For the Edizioni del Leone she released the poetry book Attorno a ciò che non è stato (Achille Marazza Prize, Opera Prima 2012). Her latest book of poems, “La parte dell’annegato”, has been published by Nottetempo (October, 2015) She won several national and international literary awards. Since 2012 she is member of the editorial committee of the Steve poetry review contributing with reviews and translations. Since 2006 she is one of the organizers of the Percorsi Poetici event hosted by the Festival Internazionale di Poesia in Genova. She curates the GENOVA-VOCI contemporary poetry festival for the Biblioteca Universitaria di Genova.

Najwan Darwish

Najwan Darwish born December 8, 1978 in Jerusalem, Palestine is one of the foremost Arabic-language poets of his generation. Darwish is a poet, journalist, editor and cultural critic. Currently he is the Chief Editor of the Cultural Section of Al Araby Al Jadeed newspaper and serves as the literary advisor to the Palestine Festival of Literature. In the past he has worked as the Chief Editor of Min wa Ila Magazine, and as the cultural critic for Al Akhbar Newspaper from 2006 to 2012, amongst other key positions in cultural journalism. In 2014, NPR included his book Nothing More To Lose as one of the best books of the year. In 2009, Hay Festival Beirut pronounced him one of the 39 best Arab writers under the age of 40.

Gytis Norvilas

Gytis Norvilas (b. 24 of December, 1976 in Jonava) poet, translator, essayist. Gytis has studied Theory of History ant History of Culture in Vilnius University. He started to publish in press in 1997. His first book Akmen-skeltės appeared in 2002, and was awarded with the Prize for Poetic Debut of the Festival Druskininkai Poetic Fall. The book „Išlydžių zonos” was awarded by The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore as the most creative published work of 2012. The book was chosen by competent Commission to Five best poetry books of 2012 in Book of the Year Campaign. Member of Lithuanian Writers Union. Lives in Vilnius. Editor of weekly cultural periodical „Literatūra ir menas” (Literature and art). He translates poetry and prose from German, Russian. Translated and published Tuvans, Old Indians poetry; also a number of works of German and Austrian poets, i.e. Albert Lichtenstein, Hugo Ball, August Stramm etc.

Carlos Ramírez Vuelvas

Carlos Ramírez Vuelvas (Mexico, 1981). Author of the poetry books: Brazo de sol, Calíope baila con el poeta ebrio, Casa de tres patios and Ha llegado el verano a casa. Some of his poems appear in the anthologies: Un orbe más ancho. 40 poetas jóvenes (1971-1983), La luz que va dando nombre and El oro ensortijado, Lumbre en el almaje. Muestra de poesía mexicana (1970-1985), Poesía contemporánea: México-Colombia y Antología general de la poesía mexicana.

Jalal El Hakmaoui

Jalal El Hakmaoui was born in 1965 in Casablanca. He teaches literary translation, and is a member of the Maison de la poésie in Morocco and the Union des Écrivains du Maroc. He is a poet, translator, film critic and independent journalist. His poetry publications include: Certificat de Célibat (Paris: Éditions Galgamesh, 1997), Allez un peu au cinéma (Toubkal, 2007), Ce que je n’ai pas dit à Al Pacino, bilingual edition, (Brussels: Maelström, 2012), Perfect day, (Brussels: Maelström, Maison de la poésie d’Amay, forthcoming, 2016). He is currently director of the international electronic poetry journal, www.electronlibre.ma and the Maison Internationale des traducteurs littéraires in Morocco. He lives and works in Rabat. His poetry has been translated into French, English, Chinese, Romanian, Italian…

Tomas Venclova

Tomas Venclova, born in Klaipėda (Lithuania) in 1937, is a Lithuanian poet and essayist. He emigrated from Lithuania (then occupied by the USSR) in 1977 as a member of the dissident movement. He taught Russian, Polish and Lithuanian literature at Yale University for many years, and is now a Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures there. A winner of several national and international prizes, he has published more than fifty books. His works include volumes of poetry, essays, literary biography and conversations. His poetry, written exclusively in Lithuanian, has been translated into twenty-odd languages, including English, Gaelic, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.).

Martin Langford

Martin Langford was born in Plymouth, Devon, England, in 1952. He emigrated to Australia at age 8. He is a poet, writer for children and cultural manager. He has published seven books of poetry, including: Faultlines, 1991; The Great Wall of Instinct, 1993; Be Straight With Me, 2000; Island, 2000; The Human Project: new and selected, 2009. He also published Microtexts, 2005 (collection of aphorisms on poetry and poetics). The most recent of his books is Ground (P&W, 2015). He is the editor of Harbour City Poems: Sydney in Verse 17882008 (P&W, 2009). Active in poetry organisations, he is the Deputy Chair of Australian Poetry Ltd and poetry reviewer for Meanjin. On several occasions he directed the Australia Poetry Festival.

Joachim Sartorius

Joachim Sartorius was born in Fürth/Bavaria in 1946 and grew up in Tunis. He studied law and political science in Munich, London and Paris and served as a diplomat in New York, Istanbul and Nicosia until 1986. After holding various positions in the field of international cultural policy, he acted as head of the Goethe Institute worldwide. From 2001 to 2011 he has been Director General of the Berlin Festivals. His wide-ranging publishing projects include translations of the Collected Works of Malcolm Lowry and William Carlos Williams, as well as works by Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery and Allen Curnow, among many other books; book collaborations with the artists James Lee Byars, Emilio Vedova, Nan Goldin and Max Neumann; and highly regarded international poetry anthologies. His own poetry has been collected in eight volumes, and is now also available in translation in twelve foreign languages. He also published a book of essays and two travelogues The Princes Islands (2008) and The Geccos of Bellapais (2013).

Runa Svetlikova

Runa Svetlikova is a poet, writer and graphic designer. She was born in 1982, she studied graphic design, language and literature. She made her debut in 2014 with the poetry collection Padded White Room, published by Marmer Press. The book was already recognized and awarded with the prestigious prize Herman de Conink for best debut book in 2015, the Jo Peters Poetry Award (2016), and was also nominated for C. Buddingh’-prize in 2015. In 2016 fot this book she won the international poetic award “Bridges of Struga” for best debutant book is awarded by Struga Poetry Evenings together with UNESCO. She does regular readings and organizes small poetry festivals.

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa. She is the author of more than forty volumes of poetry, novels, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction. While studying in Boston, she published her first collection of poetry, The Circle Game (1966), which was awarded the prestigious Governor General’s Award and she gained international reputation after publishing the poetry collection Double Persephone. Over the next few years, she continued to alternate between poetry and prose. In her poetry, the most common theme is the relation between civilization and wilderness and she considers these oppositions to be some of the defining principles of Canadian literature. She is the author of over fifteen books of poetry which have been translated in many languages and published in more than twenty five countries. Her poetry work includes: The Circle Game (1964); The Animals in That Country (1969); The Journals of Suzanna Moodie (1970); Procedures for Underground (1970); Power Politics (1971); You are Happy (1974); Selected poems (1976); Selected poems (1965-1975); Two-Headed Poems (1978); Interlunar (1984); Selected Poems (1966-1984); Margaret Atwood Poems (1976-1986); Morning in the Burned House (1995); Eating Fire: Selected Poetry (1965-1995); The Door (2007).

Bei Dao

Bei Dao is the most distinguished Chinese poet of his generation and considered by many to be one of the major writers of modern China. Born Zhao Zhenkai on August 2, 1949, in Beijing, his pseudonym, Bei Dao, literally means "Northern Island" and was suggested by a friend as a reference to the poet's provenance from northern China as well as his typical solitude. Bei Dao became one of the foremost poets of the Misty School, a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution. In 1978 Bei Dao and colleague Mang Ke founded the underground literary magazine Jintian (Today), which the Chinese government banned from publication in 1980. Bei Dao's poem Huida ("The Answer") was taken up as a defiant anthem of the pro-democracy movement and appeared on posters during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. During the 1989 movement, Bei Dao was in Berlin as a writer in residence and was not allowed to return to China. He spent the next eighteen years ill exile, living in eight different countries. Bei Dao's books of poetry include Unlock (2000), At the Sky's Edge: Poems 1991-1996 (1996), Landscape Over Zero (1995), Forms of Distance (1994), Old Snow (1991), and The August Sleepwalker (1988). He is also the author of the short-story collection Waves (1985) and two essay collections, Blue House (2000) and Midnight's Gate (2005), an excerpt from which appeared ill the May 2005 issue of World Literature Today (under the title "New York Variations"). His work has been translated into over thirty languages. His awards and honors include the Aragana Poetry Prize from the International Festival of Poetry in Casablanca, Morocco, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has been a candidate several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was elected an honorary member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters. At the request of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, he traveled to Palestine as part of a delegation for the International Parliament of Writers. Bei Dao was a Stanford Presidential lecturer and has taught at the University of California at Davis, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and Beloit College in Wisconsin. In 2006, Bei Dao was allowed to move back to China.

Adonis

He was born in Al Quassabin on 1 January 1930. He is a poet, essay writer, born in Syria, but later on becomes a citizen of Lebanon. He is the greatest contemporary Arabic poet. His work is a excellent lyrical synthesis of the East and the West,one new literature expression and interpretation. Works: Songs of Mihyar the Damascene, 1961; Book of Metamorphosis and Moving in the Regions of Day and Night, 1965; Theatre and Mirrors, 1968; Time between Ashes and Roses, 1970; Singulari in Plural form, 1977; Book of Surroundings, 1985; Lascivousness Surging in the Maps of Matter, 1987; Light Celebrations, 1988; Second Alphabet, 1994. He is an author of many books essays.

Ko Un

Ko Un was born in 1933, which means that today he is nearer 80 than 70. He is surely Korea's most prolific writer and he himself cannot say for sure how many books he has published in all. He guesses that it must be about 140, volumes of many different kinds of poetry, epic, narrative, and lyric, as well as novels, plays, essays, and translations from classical Chinese. In the last two decades he has made journeys to many parts of the world, including Australia, Vietnam, the Netherlands, Mexico, Sweden, Venice, Istanbul . . . He makes a deep impression wherever he goes, especially when he is reading his poems in the husky, tense, dramatic manner he favors. It seems to make little or no difference that most of his audience cannot understand a word he is saying. He speaks little or no English but time after time a deep communication is established before anyone reads an English translation or summary of what he had been saying. After the drama of his own performance, the translations usually sound rather flat. Ko Un's ability to communicate beyond language is a gift that other Korean writers can only envy him for. There are some people who do not seem to need words in order to communicate, it is part of their charisma. There are many barriers to communication and many are the arts by which people have tried to overcome them. In the case of Ko Un, who cannot be every day giving readings, there is an urgent need to make translations of his work available. In bringing Ko Un's writings to a world audience, I am acting to make cross-cultural communication possible in one particular case. It may be good to begin with a summary of Ko Un’s life story, since that in turn may help to pinpoint some of the difficulties we encounter in translating his writings. He was born in 1933 and grew up in Gunsan, a town on the west coast of North Jeolla Province. Echoes of his childhood experiences in the Korea of the 1930s and 1940s can be found in the earlier volumes of the great 30-volume series known as Maninbo, the final volumes of which were published early in 2010. The traditional life of the farming villages, the intense awareness of extended family relationships, the poverty and the high level of infant mortality all make this a world far removed even from modern Korea, and very unfamiliar to non-Korean readers. Readers are expected to know that when Ko Un was a child, Korea was under Japanese rule, and to know what that signifies for Koreans still today. In 1950, war broke out and Ko Un was caught up in almost unimaginably painful situations, which were in strong contradiction with the warm human community he had grown up in, as Koreans and outside forces slaughtered each other mercilessly. As a child, Ko Un had been something of a prodigy, learning classical Chinese at an early age with great facility, and encountering the world of poetry as a schoolboy through the chance discovery of a book of poems written by a famous leper-poet. His sensitivity was not that of an ordinary 18-year-old and he experienced a deep crisis when confronted with the reality of human wickedness and cruelty. His experiences included the murder of members of his family and the death of his first love as well as days spent carrying corpses to burial. He poured acid into his ears in an attempt to block out the "noise" of this dreadful world, an act that left him permanently deaf in one ear. The traumas of war might have destroyed him completely but he took refuge in a temple and the monk caring for him decided that his only hope of finding a way out of his torment would be by becoming a Buddhist monk, leaving the world at a time when the world was a very ugly place. His great intellectual skills meant that he rapidly became known in Buddhist circles and after the Korean War ended he was given responsibilities. More important to Ko Un were his experience of life on the road as he accompanied his master, the famous monk Hyobong, on endless journeys around the ravaged country. Hyobong had been a judge during the Japanese period and had quit the world to become a monk after being forced to condemn someone to death. Ko Un's character is intense, uncompromising, he is easily driven to emotional extremes and he soon began to react against what he felt was the excessively formal religiosity of many monks. The reader of his work has sometimes to follow him through shadows cast by intense despair. He felt obliged to stop living as a monk and in the early 1960s he became a teacher in Jeju Island. Later in the decade he moved to Seoul. For several years he lived as a bohemian nihilist while Korea was brought toward its modern industrial development under the increasingly fierce dictatorship of Park Chung-hee. The climax came early in 1970 when Ko Un went up into the hills behind Seoul and drank poison. He nearly died but was found and brought down to hospital. In November 1970 a young textile-worker, Jeon Tae-il, killed himself during a demonstration in support of workers' rights. Ko Un read about his death in a newspaper he picked up by chance from the floor of a bar where he had spent the night. The impact of such a selfless death changed his life radically. He says that from that moment on he lost all inclination to kill himself. The declaration of the Yushin reforms in 1972, by which Park Chung-hee became president for life and abolished democratic institutions, sparked strong protests among writers and intellectuals as well as among the students who have always acted as Korea's conscience. In the years of demonstrations and protests that followed, Ko Un's voice rang out and he became the recognized spokesman of the 'dissident' artists and writers opposed to the Park regime. He was often arrested and is today hard of hearing from beatings he received then. When Chun Doo-hwan rose to power in 1980, Ko Un was arrested along with Kim Dae-jung and many hundreds of Korea's 'dissidents' and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. It was there, as he faced the possibility of arbitrary execution, that he formed the project of writing poems in commemoration or celebration of every person he had ever encountered. No one, he reckoned, should ever be simply forgotten, since every life has immense value and is equally precious as historical record. This was the origin of the poems in the Maninbo (Ten Thousand Lives) series. Once the new regime felt sure of its hold on power, most of the prisoners were amnestied. Ko Un was freed in August 1982, in May 1983 he married Lee Sang-Wha, and in 1985 a daughter was born. He went to live in Anseong, two hours from Seoul, and began a new life as a householder, husband, and father, while continuing to play a leading role in the struggle for democracy and for a socially committed literature. There are people who say that a poet's life has nothing to do with the poems he or she writes but that is hardly tenable. It is a theory that considers poetry uniquely from a formal standpoint and excludes every aspect of personal, social, or historical context. Yet every word Ko Un writes is rooted in and informed by the experience of life I have just outlined. It is inconceivable that a man with such a life-story should not write poems deeply marked by it. He has a very intense sense of history, and of his writing as a mirror of Korean history. Books of Poems Other World Sensibility(1960), Seaside Poems(1966), God, the Last Village of Language(1967), Senoya, Senoya: Little Songs(1970), On the Way to Munui Village(1977), Going into Mountain Seclusion(1977), Early Morning Road(1978), Homeland Stars(1984), Pastoral Poems(1986), Fly High, Poems!(1986), The Person Who Should Leave(1986), Your Eyes(1988), My Evening(1988), The Grand March of That Day(1988), Morning Dew(1990), For Tears(1991), One Thousand Years’ Cry and Love: Lyrical Poems of Paektu Mountain(1990), Sea Diamond Mountain(1991), What?—Zen Poems(1991), Songs on the Street(1991), Song of Tomorrow(1992) The Road Not Yet Taken(1993), Songs for ChaRyong(1997), Dokdo Island(1995), Ten Thousand Lives, 20 Volumes(1986-1997), Paektu Mountain: An Epic, 7 Volumes(1987-94), A Memorial Stone (1997), Whispering(1998), Far, Far Journey(1999), South and North(2000), The Himalayas(2000), Flowers of a Moment(2001). Poems Left Behind (2002). Novels Cherry Tree in Other World(1961), Eclipse(1974), A Little Traveler(1974), Night Tavern: A Collection of Short Stories(1977), A Shattered Name (1977), The Wandering Souls: Hansan and Seupduk (1978), A Certain Boy: A Collection of Short Stories(1984), The Garland Sutra (Little Pilgrim)(1991), Their Field(1992) The Desert I Made(1992), Chongsun Arirang(1995), The Wandering Poet Kim, 3 volumes(1995), Zen: A Novel, 2 Volumes(1995), Sumi Mountain, 2 volumes(1999) Collections of Essays Born to be Sad(1967), Sunset on the G-String(1968), Things that Make Us Sad(1968), Where and What Shall We Meet Again?—A Message of Despair(1969), An Era is Passing(1971), 1950s(1973), For Disillusionment(1976), Intellectuals in Korea(1976), The Sunset on the Ghandis(1976), A Path Secular(1977), With History, With Sorrow(1977), For Love(1978), For Truth(1978), For the Poor(1978), Penance to the Horizon(1979), My Unnamable Spiritual(1979), Flowers from Suffering(1986), Flow, Water(1987), Ko Un’s Correspondence(1989), The Leaves Become Blue Mountain(1989), Wandering and Running at Full Speed(1989), History is Dreaming(1990), How I Wandered from Field to Field(1991), The Diamond Sutra I Experience(1993), Meditation in the Wilderness(1993), Truth-Seeker(1993), I Will Not Be Awakened(1993), At the Living Plaza(1997), Morning with Poetry(1999) Travel Books Old Temples: My Pilgrimage, My Country(1974), Cheju Island(1975), A Trip to India(1993), Mountains and Rivers, My Mountains and Rivers(1999), Works of Literary Criticism Literature and People(1986), Poetry and Reality(1986), Twilight and Avant-Garde(1990), Biography A Critical Biography of Yi Jooung-Sup(1973), A Critical Biography of the Poet Yi Sang(1973), A Critical Biography of Han Yong-Un(1975) Autobiography Son of Yellow Soil: My Childhood(1986), I, Ko Un, 3 Volumes (1993) Translations Selected Poems of the Tang Dynasty(1974), Selected Poems of Tufu(1974), Chosa: Selected Poems by Kulwon(1975) Editions Several works of old Korean poetry and songs. To say nothing of some Children’s Books Awards Korean Literature Prize(1974) Korean Literature Prize(1987) Manhae Prize in Literature(1989) Joong-Ang Prize for Literature(1991) Daesan Prize for Literature(1994) Honorary resident of Jeong Seon County, KangWon Province (1997) Manhae Grand Prize(1998) Buddhist Literature Prize(1999) The Republic of Korea's Silver Order of Merit in Culture (2002) Danjae Prize(2004) Unification Award(2005) Bjornson Order for Literature, the only Norwegian Order for Literary Merits(2005) Swedish Literary Prize ‘the Cikada Prize” (2006) Young-Rang Poetry Award(2007) Yusim(Mind) Literature Prize(2008) Lifetime Achievement Prize (Griffin Fund for Excellence in Poetry, Canada, 2008) Korea Academy of Arts Award(2008) Honorary doctoral degree from Dankook University (2010) Winner of The America Awards for a Lifetime Contribution to International Writinlng (2011) Honorary doctoral degree from Jonbuk University (2011) Honorary resident of Jeju Special Autonomic Province (2011) Membership of Honor Committee of World Poetry Academy (2011) Honorary citizenship of Gwangju Metropolitan City (2012) Honored to be a Human Evergreen Tree (2012) Honorary Fellow from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy (2013)

Jose Emilio Pacheko

José Emilio Pacheco Berny was born in Mexico City on June 30, 1939. He is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, journalist, translator, and university professor. At a very young age he began to stand out as one of the key members of the so-called Half Century Generation in his country. He studied law and literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he published his first literary texts in student-run magazines. Later on, he wrote for Ramas Nuevas, the supplement of the magazine Estaciones, was Assistant Editor of the Revista de la Universidad de México, and was Editor-in-Chief of the supplement México en la Cultura. His weekly articles for the magazine Proceso, which appeared for various decades, are one of the best examples of cultural journalism in Latin America. He was a researcher for the Department of Historical Studies at the National Institute of Anthropology and History, an experience that brought about the notable publications, La poesía mexicana del siglo XIX (1965) and Antología del Modernismo, 1884-1921 (1978). He has taught at universities in Mexico, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. He has received honorary doctorates from the Mexican universities Autonomous of Nuevo León (2009), Autonomous of Campeche (2010) and National Autonomous of Mexico (2010), and was awarded the Alfonso Reyes Prize from the College of Mexico (2011). He was a member of the National College in his country and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Spanish at the University of Maryland in the United States. He was the author of fifteen books of poetry, all accounted for in the present anthology, with poems selected by the author himself. Additionally, he has published the short story collections La sangre de Medusa y otros cuentos marginales (1959), El viento distante (1963), El principio del placer (1972) and Tarde de agosto (1992); the novels Morirás lejos (1967) and Las batallas en el desierto (1981); and the book of essays El derecho a la lectura (1994). Many of his books have come out in German, French, English, Japanese and Russian. He has translated into Spanish works by Albert Einstein, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett and Evgeny Eytuschenko, among others. He has received numerous noteworthy awards, including the Magda Donato Prize (1967), the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize (1970), the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize (1973), the National Journalism Prize (1980), the National Prize of Arts and Sciences (1992), the Octavio Paz Prize for Poetry and Essay (2003), the Ramón López Velarde Prize for Ibero-American Poetry (2003) and the Alfonso Reyes International Prize (2004), all in Mexico. Other Spanish-speaking countries have honored him with the José Asunción Silva Prize (1996), in Colombia; the José Donoso Prize for Ibero-American Literature (2001) and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Ibero-American Poetry (2004), in Chile; and the Federico García Lorca International Poetry Prize (2005) and the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry (2009), in Spain. As the culmination of such an extraordinary life’s work, in 2009 he received in Madrid the Miguel de Cervantes Literature Prize, the most important award given to a writer in the Spanish language. Pacheco died on January 26, 2014 in Mexico City.

Nancy Morejon

One of the foremost Cuban poets and intellectuals, Nancy Morejón has published more than twenty collections of poetry, three monographs, a dramatic poem, and six critical studies of Cuban history and literature. She has gained an international reputation for her poetry, which has been translated into several languages, anthologized in many collections. Among many others she has been awardes with The Golden Wreath (2006) and Rafael Alberti Award (2008).

Vasco Graça Moura

Born near Oporto but now based in Lisbon, Vasco Graça Moura is Portugal’s most renowned translator of poetry, the winner of major prizes for his renditions of Dante’s Divina Commedia (1995) and the complete sonnets of Shakespeare (2002), and acclaimed as well for his translations of Petrarch, Gottfried Benn, Rilke, Seamus Heaney, and others. Some poems meditate on art and music, others take up historical and literary figures, and even the intensely personal poems connect with large, humanistic concerns. The poetic tradition, more than a thematic subject, is reflected in the poetry’s very manufacture, the poet having revitalized Renaissance metrical & rhyme schemes imported into Portuguese poetry from Italy. Driven by the poetical principle that everything can be transformed into literature, his poems are an attempt of a poetic transfiguration of the banal. The poetry through intertextuality and cultivated perception strives towards literary conversion of reality. His recognizable “casual” style would grow into a specific “narrative poetry”, which very often represents its own outpour of the lyrical, the aesthetic colloquialialism, through which that prosaic style contains all the styles, it even recycles and incorporates the technical dictionary of the West. The verse becomes an expression of experience, of memory, of the transient practice through a personal, biographic emphasis. Some of the poems are meditative emphases of art and music, others are inspired by historical and literary persons, and are even intensely personal poems connected to great, humanistic problems. As a poet, he gained recognition with the book Modus which changes (1963), followed by, among others, English week (1965), December and other poems (1976), Recitatives (1977) Instruments of Melancholy (1980), A concert in a field (1993), Family sonnets (1995), Poems with persons (1997), Testament of VGM (2001). As a novelist he has published: Four last poems (1987), The shipwreck of Sepulveda (1988), Sophonisba leaving at six and twelve in the morning (1993) The death of Nobody (1998) My love, it was night (2001). As an essayist, he has published the books: Luis de Camoes: several challenges (1980), Several voices (1987), Portraits if Isabel and other attempts (1994).

Justo Jorhe Padron

Justo Jorge Padron was born in 1943 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands, Spain. He is Secretary General of the Spanish PEN Club from 1983 to 1993, founder and editor of the international multilingual journal of poetry ‘Equivalencias’ from 1982 to 1994 and director of the International Poetry Festival of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria from 1992 to 2002 . Chairman and organizer of the sixth world congress of poets held in Madrid in 1982. His poetry has been translated into forty-four languages and has published hundreds of books in foreign languages. He has received thirty international awards including The International Prize of the Swedish Academy, 1972.; Bard International Award of the International association of modern poets, Melbourne, Australia, 1981.; International Prize of Madras, India, 1982 .; Golden Medal of Chinese Culture, 1983.; European Prize for Literature, Yugoslavia, 1986.; Great International Prize for Literature in Sofia, Bulgaria, 1988, twice winner of the “New Macedonia” for best song of the Struga Poetry Evenings, Struga, Macedonia, 1989. and 2002.; Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings, Macedonia, 1990.; International Award “Blaise Sendrar”, Switzerland, 1994.; International Award “Nikita Stanesku” Romania, 1996.; International Prize of the City of Trieste Italy, 1999.; International Award “Leopold Senghor Cedar”, Dakar, Senegal, 2003.; award of 9 th International Book Fair in Lima, Peru, 2004.; Award “Golden heads of grain” of the International Poetry Festival “Sesar Valjeho” in Truhiljo, Peru, 2008.

Ljubomir Levchev

Lyubomir Levchev was born on 27 April 1935 in Troyan. He graduated from the History-philosophic Faculty at the University St Kliment Ohridski in Sofia. He was an editor nad editor-in-chief of the magazine Literary Front (1961-1971), forst Deputy Minister of Culture of Bulgaria (1975-1979), President of the Writers’ Assotiation of Bulgaris (1979-1989). Since 1991 he has been editor and owner of his Publishing House Orpheus and the same-named international magazine. His first poetry book “The Stars are Mine” was published in 1957. In 2007 he publishes his poetry book “The Last Poems”. In that period of 50 years he published over 30 books of poetry, as well as the novels “Kill the Bulgarian!” (1988) and “You are the Next” (1998). In 2008 the last volume of his Selected works named “Dangerous Freedom” was published. Levchev’s works have been published in 34 countries in 70 separate books. He is a significant activist of culture (1997), honourable PhD of the bulgarian Free University, full-time member of the European academy of art, science and culture in Paris, member-founder of the Europen Poetry Academy in Luxembourgm member of the international House of Poetry in Brussels, member of the International literary fund of Moscow and a honourable member of “Kasa Internacional de Poesia” from Lima

Fatos Arapi

He was born in 1930, studied Economy in Bulgaria, and in Tirana he worked as a journalist and lecturer of Modern Albanian Literature. His poetry opus is consisted of 25 books. He is author of philosophy verses, love poetry and elegies. He turns the attention towards himself since the 60ties, when he published his first poetry books “Poetic Paths” and “Poemsand Verses”. With those poetry collections he introduced elements of the global literature currencies and ideas into the Albanian literature that had stagnated for a long time. In many literature magazines his poetry is described as a harmony where sea waves merge with the ideas of liberation of the individual form the restraints some societies put on artists. Because of the changes he propagated through his art, he often faced problems during the communist regime in Albania. After the collapse of that regime, Arapi amplified his creative work. He is still one for the leading figures in the poetry creation in that part of Europe.

Mongany Wally Serote

Mongane Wally Serote was born in Sophiatown, north of Johannesburg, in 1944. He attended school in Alexandra. The political conditions of the time led him to develop an interest in the Black Consciousness (BC) philosophy and the anti-apartheid struggles of the day. Upon leaving school, Serote began working as a journalist. More widely known as “Wally”, Serote is generally regarded as one of South Africa’s pre-eminent poets and writers. He is renowned as one of the Soweto poets who embodied the literary revival of black voices in the 1970s. Serote’s poems projected a stark and realistic picture of the apartheid regime. His resistance to the unjust regime extended outside of poetry through active involvement in political resistance by joining the African National Congress (ANC).

Mateja Matevski

Poet, literary and theatre critic, essayist and translator who was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1929. He is author of 19 books of poetry and about 10 selected anthologies, his poetry has been published on all continents and translated into 22 languages. He has won almost all national awards and 16 international prizes for his poetic work. Mateja Matevski is a member of the Macedonian Academy of Science and Art and won the Golden Wreath of Poetry at the International festival “ Struga Poetry Evenings“.

Paula Bozalongo

Paula Bozalongo was born on 15 April 1991 in Granada, Spain. She studied architecture in Madrid. Her book “December and We Kissed” was awarded the prestigious prize of the “Hiperion” edition in Spain, which has been awarded for books of poetry by a young author for 30 years now. Her poems have been published in significant literary magazines, not only in her motherland, but other countries of the world as well. Her debut book “December and We Kissed” through 26 poems, divided in two parts, brings forth a poetic language which radiates with a characteristic sensibility, not burdened by some adventurous rhetoric, experimental and metaphorical expression. This is poetry carrying reflections of certain insecurities and fears, indecisiveness in search for closeness. This is by no means some old-fashioned sentimentality, but a spirit-filled expression of intimacy which brings sincerity expressed in a special way, filled with evocative images influenced even by architecture.[su_accordion] [su_spoiler title="Paula Bozalongo" style="fancy"] The lyric subject reflects an intimate lyric temperament through the elegant and bold changes in the poetic images, through elegiac tonality in which their constant transformations take place. The tranquil tone of this self-reflective lyric is suddenly interrupted by contrapuntal images which sometimes bring contradiction and amazement, and act as an emotional cadence in the poem. Such poetic form allows the young poetess to harness in the poem all of her reminiscences, allusions, emotional outpourings, memories, doubts and fears through the skillful interchange of the story and the confession and create an exceptionally suggestive lyric which challenges the reader with constant interruptions of this confidential tone through constant juxtapositions of images. This poetry arises from that belief in the transforming power of emotions which fill the poetic images with a tendency to rediscover and change the internal logic of time and space. Hence this quest for love, for intimacy is emphasized through the reflected representations of places and objects that contain the coldness and alienation, and it is entwined in the poem as a muffled cry in the storm (“The Prestige of Crying”). These introspections of disappointments, longings and dreams become contemplative images which contain geometric shapes and structures, architectonic metaphors, such as in the poem “Geometry” where in cubic manner she draws out the silhouette of her loved one in triangles, trapezoids, circles and ellipses. “I lack dimensions/ to explain the world”, as she herself says in her poem, she announces another name whose poetic quest for a new poetic expression will certainly bring poetic creations which will attract the attention of the European and world literary public.
Лирскиот субјект одразува еден интимен лирски темперамент низ елегантните и смели измени на поетските слики, низ еден елегичен тоналитет во кој се случуваат нивните постојани преобразби. Спокојниот тон на оваа само-рефлексивна лирика одеднаш го нарушуваат контрапунктни слики кои понекогаш донесуваат спротивставеност и зачуденост, и делуваат како емотивна каденца во текот на песната. Ваквото поетско обликување ѝ овозможува на младата поетеса да ги впрегне во песната сите реминисценции, алузии, емотивни изблици, сеќавањата, сомнежите и стравовите низ вештите измени со приказната и исповедноста и да создаде исклучително сугестивна лирика која го предизвикува читателот со постојаното нарушување на таквиот доверлив тон преку постојаните јукстапозиции на сликите.
Оваа поезија извира од таа верба во трансформирачка моќ на емоциите кои ги натопуваат поетските слики во тежнение повторно да ја откријат и да ја изменат внатрешната логика на времето и просторот. Оттаму таа потрага по љубов, по блискост е потенцирана преку отсликаните претстави на простори и предмети кои го содржат студенилото и оттуѓеноста, и е проткаена во песната како еден пригушен плач во бурата („Престижот на плачот“).Тие интроспекции на разочарувањата, копнежите и мечтаењата стануваат контемплативни слики кои содржат и геометриски форми и структури, архитектонски метафори, како на пример во песната „Геометрија“ каде во еден кубистички манир ги исцртува силуетите на саканиот со триаголници, трапезоиди, кругови и елипси. „Ми недостасуваат димензии / за да го објаснам светот“, како што самата вели во својата песна, навестуваат ново име чие поетска потрага по ново поетско писмо со сигурност ќе донесе поетски творби кои ќе го привлечат вниманието на европската и светската книжевна јавност.(Од образложението на одлуката на СВП по повод доделувањето на наградата „Мостови на Струга”)

Harry Man

Harry Man was born in Buckinghamshire in 1982 and is an award-winning poet and digital editor working in publishing in London. He has worked with some of Britain’s bestselling and most widely-recognised literary authors and estates as a fiction and science fiction desk editor, a programmer and a digital publisher. He holds an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. In 2005 he won BBC3's You Heard it Here First. In 2012, as well as being longlisted for the Melita Hume prize, he won third prize in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and in 2013 he earned second place in PEN International’s Made-Up-Words competition. He has recently been awarded a grant from the Arvon Foundation. Harry has taught Creative Writing workshops in a wide-range of settings including Berrygrove Academy, a primary school in North London, Reading Festival, Totterdown Café Writers' Circle and HarperCollins. He is an entertaining, energetic and informative speaker. His writing concerns the scientific and the personal, skipping between the seeming sense of customer service chatbots and the history of the Earth as told through its online presence, from to love-sick time machine pilots and the brains of nightingales, to intimate stories drawn from the birth of American spaceflight. Harry Man’s poetry has appeared in New Welsh Review, Fuselit, Poems in the Waiting Room, Eyewear Poetry Focus, Poetry Digest, Popshot Magazine, ditch, Elbow Room, And Other Poems, The Morning Star, Poems in Which and Astronaut among other places. He is also a member of Malika Booker’s Poetry Kitchen. He has collaborated with the dancer & choreographer Jennifer Essex on a production for the London College of Fashion and privately on projects with the collage artist Tom Moglu. Harry also narrates children's books for HarperAudio and was selected to be the voice of many of Michael Morpurgo's children's books. Harry Man's first pamphlet of poems, Lift (2013) is published by Tall Lighthouse. Prizes & Awards Second Place - Made Up Words - PEN International 2013 Third Prize Cardiff International Poetry Competition 2012 Longlisted for the Melita Hume 2012 Longlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize 2006 BBC3 You Heard it Here First 2005 Philip Lawrence Award 1998 & 1999

Siim Kera

Siim Kera was born 21 years ago in 1989 in a small South Estonian village called Vastseliina. Nowadays he lives and study in Tartu. His first book was published in 2009, and it’s about love and death and everything that he seems interested about. He has published poetry and short stories in different magazines and newspapers. He also write music reviews for one of the biggest newspapers in Estonia so it’s safe bet to say that he likes writing.

Hiroshi Taniuchi

Poet, Translator, born on 19 February 1976 in Kyoto, JAPAN Graduated Osaka Prefecture University Major field is French culture Position Member of Japan Universal Poets Association, Kansai Poets Asscociation Editor of English-Japanese International Publication, “Poetic Bridge: AMA-HASHI(天橋）”. Member of Poetry Magazine, “PO” (Osaka, Japan) His first book “Plus one word to the world” is a contribution to International Journal: “Poetic Bridge: AMA-HASHI”

François-Xavier Maigre

Was born in 1982, in the seaside town Sharant , in France. He finished law studies and journalism, after which he starts working as a journalist in the daily newspaper “Crux”. Following the example of Roland Nados and the reading of Saint-Paul-Rue, Jill Bodry or Gérard Bosholie, his writing shows aspiration towards the inside, the listening, the contemplation. In his eyes the word should not turn towards itself, but to serve the mystery that overwhelms it, to target towards something greater than itself. Along with his writing he works with music, he has three CDs and he has had many concerts.

Antonija Novaković

Antonija Novakovic was born in 1979 in Zagreb. Apart from the "Bridges" award (2008), she is also the winner of the award for poets-debutants "Goran" (2008), which is awarded within the festival "Goranova Prolet" in Croatia. "It's Easy to Be Worse" is her first book. Previously not published. He lives and works in Zagreb.

Risto Jacev

Risto Gj. Jacev was born in the Aegean part of Macedonia. With thousands of Macedonian children refugees and persecuted from their homes, he experiences a dramatic childhood and youth in emigration. He graduated in literature at the Faculty of Philology at the University "Cyril and Methodius" in Skopje. At first he worked for a while as an artist and high school teacher, and then he moved to the then Radio Skopje (today Macedonian Radio) where he worked as a journalist and editor until the end of his working life. As an extremely prolific writer Risto Gj. Jacev has been present in contemporary Macedonian literature for more than forty years with poetic, prose and dramatic achievements. Apart from the Macedonian literary standard, he writes poems in his native Voden dialect, which, together with the poets Sande Stojcevski (who also writes in Kumanovo) and Liljana Chalovska (who also wrote in the Struga dialect) is one of the few contemporary Macedonian writers who nurture and affirm the dialectal poetic work. His poetry is presented in none of the anthological selections of contemporary Macedonian literature. It has been translated into many world languages. He is a member of the Writers' Association of Macedonia (DPM) in Skopje after 1967. Lives and works in Skopje. He is the winner of the prestigious award "Miladinov Brothers" in 2013.

Milos Lindro

Milos Lindro is a Macedonian poet, critic, essayist and translator. He was born on September 9, 1952 in Kosel, Ohrid region. He studied at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Skopje. He worked in the publishing house "Makedonska kniga" and was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Glas". Works in the Ministry of Culture within the Government of the Republic of Macedonia. He lives in Skopje. He participated in the creation of the poetic manifesto "On the Step of Speech" (Razgledi, 1980) in which he advocates the poetics of the generative which is realized through the so-called "Model of weakened naming." Translates from Serbo-Croatian and Romanian into Macedonian. He has been a member of the Writers' Association of Macedonia since 1982. Milos Lindro is a writer who has been represented in several selections and anthologies of Macedonian poetry in the country and abroad. Milos Lindro is the author of the following books: Poetry "Polilema" 1977 KMM Skopje "Vibrations" 1980 Misla Skopje "Razgradba" 1983 Macedonian book Skopje "Words for the word 1987 Our book Skopje" Raz-gradba "1994 Prose "The sign, the word, the word" 1990

Branko Cvetkoski

Born on 21 June 1954 in the village of Slatino, Ohrid; poet, literary critic, essay writer, translator, journalist, editor. He worked as a journalist on the cultural section of "Nova Makedonija" for many years. He was editor-in-chief of the publishing house "Kultura" in Skopje and of the literary journal "Stremez" in Prilep, manager-owner of the publishing house “Makavej” fromSkopje, manager of the Macedonian National Theatre, Manager of the City library Miladonov Brothers. Cvetkoski has won many recognitions for his results and achievements in the development of the world literature, of the decoration “Vladimir Mayakovski” allocated by the Wriers’ Association of Russia. Works: Turning (poetry, 1981), High Winds (poetry, 1985), Layers and voice (criticism, 1989), Fresh Ashes (poetry, 1990), Macedonian dialogues (interviews, 1990), Gift of salt (poetry selection, 1991), Earrings of stars (poetry for children, 19910, Works and virtues (criticism and essays, 1992), A waft of prayer (poetry, 1993), The word - not always opens doors (thematic supplement in the journal "Stremez", 1993), Heavenly places (audio-cassette, 1996), Critical views (criticism and essays, 1996), Higher than life (criticism and essays, 1997), Boundaries (poetry, 1997), Night book (poetry selection, 1998), Sound and resound (criticism and essays, 1999), The name. The kin. The property (narrative poem, 2000), Grief, poetry, 2002, Names and Themes, criticisms, 2003.

Risto Vasilevski

Was born in the village of Nakolec, in Prespa, Macedonia, in 1943. He is a member of the Macedonian Academy of Science and Art, a poet, essayist, literary critic, writer for children, anthologist, translator and publisher, who writes in Macedonian and Serbian. So far, he has published twenty-two books of poetry, two books of philosophemes, paracopes and notes, two books of poetry for children, two novels in verses for children and twenty three selections of poetry. He has won more than thirty important national and international rewards; he is a member of the Slovenian Academy of Literature and Art, of the International Association of writers and publicists, of the Union of Writers of Macedonia, the Union of Writers of Serbia and the Association of Translators of Serbia.