was born in Székesfehérvár in Hungary in 1980. He studied Hungarian and English. He has published three poetry collections, Istenek vagytok (You are gods),1999, A felvezető kör (Opening round), 2001, Levegővétel (Respiration), 2007. His poems have been published in three anthologies - Verskarácsony (Poetic Christmas), 2001, Szép versek (Beautiful Poems), 2006 and 2007, and have received critical acclaim in many Hungarian journals and newspapers. The main themes of Babiczky’s poetry are time, identity and self-reflexiveness. The most characteristic feature of his writing is an adroit handling of rhyme and rhythm, and an exploration of the possibilities of language through word-play and allusions to other literary works.
(1961) is the author of two novels, Černý beran (Black Ram, 2000) and Kudy šel anděl (Where The Angel Trod, 2003) and two collections of short stories. The first, Možná že odcházíme (Maybe We're Leaving, 2004), won the prestigious 2005 Magnesia Litera Prize for prose and was nominated for the Czech State Prize for Literature in 2004. His work is noted for subtle psychological analysis of human loneliness and lack of communication.
Poet and translator Ingmāra Balode was born in 1981 and graduated from the Riga College for Applied Art and the Latvian Academy of Culture. Balode works as a literary editor for the Web portal ¼ Satori (www.satori.lv), where she regularly publishes her own poetry and her translations of other poets’ works. Balode’s poems, stories, and articles first appeared in the Latvian cultural press in the mid-1990s. Her first volume of poetry, ‘Ledenes, ar kurām var sagriezt mēli’ (Hard Candy that Can Cut Your Tongue), was published in 2007. Balode’s poetry has been translated into the English, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech; she translates fiction mostly from the Polish and English, and has translated poetry from the Czech, Slovakian, and Russian. To date, her most important published translations have been by the Polish author Dorota Masłowska’s novel ‘Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną’ (English title: Snow White and Russian Red) (2007), Hanna Krall’s novel ‘Zdążyć przed Panem Bogiem’ (English title: Shielding the Flame) (2005), selection of Adam Zagajewski’s poetry ‘Svešā skaistumā’ (2009) as well as her translations of the poetry of E. E. Cummings, which have appeared in the cultural press. In addition to her work as an editor and translator, Balode has also hosted the weekly poetry program Bronhīts on Radio Naba. In 2004 and 2005, she helped to organize the Annual Poetry Readings. Balode is a member of the Latvian Writers Union and has participated in various international literary events, including the First World Congress of Translators of Polish Literature, in 2005, and the Prague International Poetry Festival, in 2007, and poetry translation project ‘Metropoetica’ since 2008.
is from Abergavenny in south-east Wales. He taught at the University of Copenhagen for thirteen years, before joining the editorial staff of the cultural magazine Planet: The Welsh Internationalist, which he edited from 1990 to 2006. He has published 18 collections of poetry, fiction and essays since his debut, Lightning Country (1984). He plays guitar and performs with the bilingual blues & poetry group Llaeth Mwnci Madog/Madog’s Moonshine and his history of the blues, Y Felan a Finnau (The Blues and Me), was published in Welsh in 1992. A collection of essays, The King of Ashes, won a Welsh Arts Council prize for Literature in 1990. A Fellow of the Welsh Academy, his latest books are Sea Lilies: Selected poems 1984-2003 (2006) and Trouble in Heaven (2007). He lives in Comins Coch, near Aberystwyth in west Wales.
was born in Limerick in 1969 and now lives in Dublin. He writes sketches and columns for the Sunday Herald in Glasgow and the Irish Examiner in Cork. He has written about travel and literature for The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and many other publications. His fiction has appeared in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, Phoenix Best Irish Stories 2001 (ed. David Marcus), These Are Our Lives (ed. Declan Meade) and in a number of periodicals in the United States, including the The Adirondack Review and The Subterranean Review. In 2004, he was shortlisted for the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award. There Are Little Kingdoms is his first collection of stories.
Meg Bateman was born in Edinburgh in Scotland in 1959. She teaches at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic-medium campus of the University of the Highlands and Islands in the Isle of Skye. She has brought out three collections of poetry and has co-edited and translated three anthologies of Gaelic medieval, 17th-century and religious verse. Her collections Aotromachd/ Lightness and Soirbheas/ Fair Wind were short-listed for the Scottish Book of the Year in 1997 and 2007.
, born in Beirut in 1966, is a Lebanese journalist and poet. He grew up as the son of an SSNP fighter who himself took up arms during the civil war. Dissatisfied with the dishonest and violent culture of militancy, he turned to poetry and literature to heal. His book Yasser Arafat Looked at me and Smiled, which was published in English and Arabic in 2007 and translated into French, is a testimony and a call against war. He has published four poetry collections and has been awarded the Youssef al-Khal Poetry Prize. Bazzi writes for the al-Mustaqbal daily.
was born in 1979 in Sarajevo. She has a degree in Comparative Literature, and an MA in Human Rights and Democracy. She spent a year in Germany on a DAAD grant studying German and Media at Phlipps University in Marburg. She has travelled widely and has participated in a number of literary encounters in Bosnia and abroad. In 2003 she spent four months travelling in the USA together with other young writers from conflict-ridden countries and has gave readings from San Francisco to Boston. She works as a journalist in the culture section of Slobodna Bosna weekly, the largest circulation Bosnian daily, where she has a literary column. Adisa Bašić has published two poetry collections, Hava’s Sentences (1999) and Trauma Market (2004). Her poetry and literary criticism have been published in leading magazines in the region, including Sarajevske sveske, Novi pogledi and Treci trg. Her story "To Survive Hitchhiking"was awarded at UNESCO competition for best short stories of young writers from South-Eastern Europe, while her second book Trauma market was selected for best poetry collection at International Publisher's Encounters “Voyage to the Center of Europe” in Pazin, Croatia, awarded with a one-month fellowship in Graz, Austria.
was born in 1942 in Çatalca near İstanbul and graduated in Russian Language and Literature. He spent part of his life in exile in Paris and Moscow. His collections of poetry are Ne Yağmur…Ne Şiirler (Neither Rain… Nor Poems, 1976), Kuşatmada (During the Siege, 1978), Mustafa Suphi Destan (Epic of Moustapha Suphi, 1979), Dörtlükler (Quatrains, 1980), Bebeklerin Ulusu Yok (Babies don’t have Nations, 1988), Sevgilimsi (You are my Beloved, 1993), Aşk İki Kişiktir (Love is two Person Thing, 1999), Yeni Aşka Gazel (Gazel to a new Love, 2002). He was arrested and sentenced to hard labour as a member of the Turkish Peace Association in 1982, and subsequently went into exile in France where he studied, worked and lived until 1989, when he was acquitted in Turkey. His Epic of Moustapha Suphi (1987/88) was the first play in Turkish staged at the 1989 Avignon Theatre Festival. He was the president of the Turkish Writers Syndicate between 1995-1999, and has been the literary and political critic on staff of the Cumhuriyet daily since 1995. He is the Associate professor and Chairman of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the Istanbul University. In 2003 he was awarded The Great Prize of Poetry 2003 by Turkish International P.E.N.
(1977) published his debut Až umřeš, nikdo už ti nebude chtít sahat na prsa, (When You're Dead, No One Will Want To Touch Your Breasts Anymore) in 2007. A collection of twenty-three stories set in a contemporary small town or village, among ordinary people, is full of accurate psychological character studies and thumbnail sketches replete with atmosphere.
was born in 1963 in Ljubljana where he works as editor at the major Slovene publishing house Cankarjeva Založba. He is the author of four radio dramas and translator of American literature. His debut novel, Plamenice in solze (Torches and Tears), published in 1983, was followed by Tao ljubezni (Tao of Love), 1996 and four collections of short stories, including Menjave kož, 1990, published in English by Northwestern University Press as Skinwaps in 1998 and Zakon želje (Law of Desire), 2000, and two collections of critical essays. His work has been translated into nine languages and his stories have appeared in anthologies The Day Tito Died, 1991, Central Europe Now!, 1995, Imagination from Terra Incognita, 1997, and Afterwards, 2000 and appeared in numerous literary magazines including Lettre Internationale and TriQuarterly.
(1963, Portlaoise) is an Irish writer, poet, critic and director of the Dublin Writers’ Festival. He has published four collections of poetry, the first of which, The Unwound Clock, won the 1989 Patrick Kavanagh Award and was followed by Familiar Things (1993), The Shape of Water (1996) and As The Hand, The Glove (2001). His first short fiction for children, All the Way From China, appeared in 1998. His non-fiction work includes The Portable Creative Writing Workshop (1999) and A Short History of Dublin (2000). He regularly reviews new publications for a number of literary journals and newspapers, including the Irish Independent, and also contributes a monthly Book Club item to the Marian Finucane Show on RTE Radio One. In addition he has co-presented the RTE television books programme, Undercover, and has edited Poetry Ireland Review.
was born in 1970. A prize-winning author of six collections of poetry and translator, he is the editor of Rukopis (Manuscript) a journal of writing and translation and contributing editor of the cultural journal Souvislosti (Connections). His poems have been translated into many languages, the collections Polni práce (Field Work) and Needlebook were published in German, and selected poems in Italian. Borkovec has translated Russian 20th century poetry and has collaborated on translations of contemporary Hungarian poetry, classical Korean poetry and classical Greek drama Oidipus Rex and Oresteia. His selected poems came out in 2006 under the title Vnitrozemí (The Interior) and will be published in English translation by the poet Justin Quinn in 2008 by Seren.
(1944 - 2007) was born in Iraq into an Assyrian family. Poet, short-story writer and translator, he is considered one of the most influential voices in contemporary Arab poetry. He started publishing in 1961, contributing to the ground-breaking Shi’r [Poetry] magazine, based in Beirut. He left Iraq in 1968, going to Beirut, and in 1969 to the USA, settling in San Francisco. He published six poetry collections and translated many British and American poets into Arabic. A study of his life and work, Sargon Boulus: his Life and Writing (in Assyrian and Arabic), was published in Baghdad, 1999. He lived in the USA and was consulting editor of Banipal, Magazine of Modern Arab Literature. A selection of his poems in English translation was published posthumously by Banipal Books under the title Knife Sharpener in 2009.
born 1978, is a film director of fiction and documentary films, a writer, lecturer in film studies and the artistic co‐director of the international women’s film festival in Israel. She wrote and directed three short films ‐ The Last Supper, 2004, Core, 2005, and Gevald, 2008 ‐ and a documentary Metamorphosis, 2006, based on testimonies of raped women. Her poems and short stories have been published in various literary magazines. Her first poetry volume called Kill and Breathe came out in 2006.
(b. 1952) is a Lithuanian poet, translator, and essayist; a member of the Lithuanian Writers’ Union, of the Lithuanian Association of Literary Translators and the Lithuanian PEN centre. Founder and leader of Magnus Ducatus Poesis – the Society of Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Polish, Latvian, Russian poets, translators and other artists. Braziūnas is one of the creators of the Movement of the French speaking poets of the Central Europe Cap à l'Est. The first book of poems As Lightning Moves was published in 1983 and Braziūnas received Zigmas Gėlė prize for the best poetry debut. Between 1986 and 2008 Braziūnas has published fourteen poetry books and received many prizes for his poetry in Lithuania and abroad. His own poetry has been translated to Albanian, Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Croatian, English, French, Georgian, German, Italian, Latvian (and Latgalian), Polish, Roumanian (and Moldavian), Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Ukrainian and other languages. Braziūnas lives and works in Vilnius.
was born in 1938 in Algarve, Portugal. He had several jobs before attending Westfield College (London), where he discovered classical Japanese poetry. He is now a professional writer and lives in Lisbon, from where he travels around the world. His first book was published in 1957. He writes poetry, fiction, aphorisms and essays and is the author of 49 titles. His works have been included in 197 anthologies and translated into 26 languages. He is also the director of Poetry Festival in Portugal, editor of several literary magazines and poetry collections, president of the General Assembley of the Portuguese P.E.N., advisor to the WHA-Tokyo and to “Diversity-PEN” and was nominated World Peace Ambassador, among other honours. He was awarded several Portuguese and international poetry prizes and was honoured with the Ordem do Infante D. Henrique by the President of Portuguese Republic.
is a translator and PhD student in English-German history. Her interest lies in the relationship between the West and the Middle East, Islam and Democracy and Palestine and Israel. She is working (with Samir El-Youssef) on a project linking the present Middle Eastern situation, particularly Palestine and Israel with past European hostilities, particularly German and British. She is currently fundraising to establish a forum or published book through which a Palestinian-Israeli/German-British narrative can be established.
was born in Gallarate (Lombardy) in 1948. He lives in Rome. He is a professor of comparative literature in the university of Milano IULM. His books of poetry include: “Suora Carmelitana” (Montale Award, Guanda, 1997); “Il Profilo del Rosa” (Betocchi Award, Mondadori, 2000); “Guerra” (Dedalus Award, Mondadori, 2005). In 1989 he founded and he is continues to be the editor of the review Testo a Fronte, dedicated to the theory and the practice of literary translation (Marcos y Marcos). As a novelist he has published Più luce, padre (Sossella 2006), Reperto 74 (Zona 2008), Zamel (Marcos y Marcos 2009).
writing articulates the many facets of contemporary Mediterranean living, seeking new possibilities of literary expression in the process. His poetry has been published in various international and Maltese anthologies and journals, and aired on radio and TV stations. His new collection of poems, Cities, will be published towards the end of 2009. Norbert graduated with first class honours in English from the University of Malta in 2002 and read for a Masters degree with distinction in 2005. As a Commonwealth scholar he is now working on his doctoral research in English literature and critical theory at the University of Warwick, UK.
(1944) has been one of Latvia’s most influential poets and translators for the last several decades. He gained full recognition only after Latvia’s independence was restored in 1991. His first collection of verse, Piemineklis kazai (Monument to a goat), was published in 1980, followed by Poētisms baltkrievs (Poeticism Byelorussian, 1984) and Nenotikušie atentāti (Assassinations that never took place, 1990). His poetry ignored approved icons and found his own authority figures to revere in long gone centuries and far away places, and, taking an unwavering and impassioned stand for the underdog, challenged the moral legitimacy of the powers that be. Bērziņš translates and renders from Slavic, Semitic, Turkish, Iranian, German and other languages, and is regarded as one of the most significant contemporary translators. Bērziņš did fieldwork in the Theology Department of Lunda University on preparation for translation of the Koran into Latvian.