DRAGAN VELIKIĆ
Dragan Velikić was born in 1953 in Belgrade. He grew up in the Croatian town of Pula on the Adriatic coast.
Graduated Comparative Literature and Theroy of Literature at Belgrade University’s School of Philology.
From 1995 until the spring of 1999 he was editor-in-chief at the publishing house of the Independent Radio B92 in Belgrade. In March 1999 he began living in exile in Budapest and Vienna. He returned to Belgrade in December 2000.
From June 2005 to November 2009 Velikić was the Serbian Ambassador to Austria. He lives in Belgrade and works as a freelance writer.
Velikić has published twelve novels: Via Pula (1988), Astrakhan (1991), Hamsin 51 (1993), The North Wall (1995), Dante’s Square (1997), The Case of Bremen (2001), Dossier Domaszewski (2003), The Russian Window (2007), Bonavia (2012), The Investigator (2015), The Address (2019), The Vienna novel (2024), three books of short stories and six books of essays. His books have been translated into twenty European languages, Arabic and Farsi in eighty foreign editions.
For the novel The Russian Window (2007) he has received the NIN Award and the Meša Selimović Award in Serbia and the Mitteleuropa Award in Austria. The Russian Window has been published in Serbia in 16 editions. For the novel Investigator he received his second NIN Award and this novel was sold in 50,000 copies.
In 2013 Dragan Velikić was presented The Award of the City of Budapest for literature and Vilenica International Literary Prize for 2019.
He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts and Letters "Sechenyi".
DIANA ÇULI
Diana Çuli is born in Tirana, Albania, where she lives. She is a well-known writer, journalist and translator. She is graduated on Languages and Literature, in the Faculty of Philology and History, University of Tirana.
Diana Çuli is author of many novels, books of short stories, dramas, screenplays for artistic films. Some of her novels, as The deer of Sidewalks, Armed Angels and Murder in Government Building and are part of school reading programs in Albania.
Diana Çuli is involved in women movement and elected President of the national network Albanian Women’s Forum.
In the years 2005-2009 Diana Çuli was elected member of Albanian Parliament.
Diana Çuli has received many literary awards for her books. The novel Armed Angels has been awarded as The best Book for the year 2007, by the jury of the Tirana Book Fair. The Murder in Government Building won the KULT Academy Award, 2019, Tirana. Many of her novels are published in Italy, Greece, North Macedonia, China, Egypt, etc.
Diana Çuli translates in Albanian authors as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Umberto Eco, Somerset Maugham, Oscar Wilde, John Irving, etc. She has been also awarded for her literary translations.
BLAŽE MINEVSKI
Blaže Minevski (1961) is a fiction writer and playwright. He is the author of ten novels. For his novel Target (Нишан), he received the "Stale Popov," "Novel of the Year," and the City of Skopje's "November 13" awards, while his novel Whistlers (Свирци) earned him the "Prose Masters" award presented by the Macedonia Present Foundation.
Minevski was also awarded the "Most Read Author" title, a recognition bestowed by the National and University Library "St. Clement of Ohrid" in Skopje.
For his novel If Any Feelings Are Born (Ако се родат некакви чувства), dedicated to the love story of Goce Delčev and Janka Kanevče, Minevski received the "Stale Popov" award and the "Racin Recognition" for the second time.
In addition to his published novels, Minevski has authored several short story collections, including Academician Sisoe’s Inaugural Address (Пристапната беседа на академик Сисое), In the Ox's Horn (Во рогот на волот), and Dandelion Season (Сезона на глуварките), for which he received the prestigious "Racin Recognition."
His plays have been part of the repertoire in Macedonian professional theaters for years and have premiered at the Ohrid Summer and Skopje Summer festivals. His play Mute Tongue (Немушт јазик) won the Macedonian National Theatre Award for Best Dramatic Text in 2001.
The novels I, Tito and Mickey Mouse (Јас, Тито и Мики Маус), Target (Нишан), and The Lure's Web (Мрежата на мамли) have been translated and published in Serbian in Belgrade, while We Should Have Taken a Picture Before We Grew to Hate Each Other (Требаше да се сликаме пред да се замразиме) and Memoirs of a Spurge (Мемоарите на една млечка) have been translated and published in Bulgarian.
The novel Target (Нишан) has been translated and published in English, Italian, Armenian, Bulgarian, Slovenian, Arabic, Chinese, and Polish.
Blaže Minevski is featured in all major anthologies of Macedonian short fiction published over the last thirty years both in North Macedonia and abroad. For his short stories, which have been translated into more than twenty languages worldwide, he has received numerous awards, including "Studentski Zbor," "Nova Makedonija," and the "Živko Čingo" award.
GABRIELA BABNIK OUATTARA
Gabriela Babnik Ouattara (born 3 September 1979 in Göppingen, Germany) is a Slovenian novelist, literary critic, translator, editor and creative writing mentor. She holds an MA in the Modern Nigerian Novel from the University of Ljubljana and is one of Slovenia's leading voices in contemporary literature, particularly in the fields of postcolonial writing, identity, migration and intercultural dialogue.
She is the author of seven novels and two short story collections. Her novel Dry Season (Sušna doba) received the European Union Prize for Literature in 2013 and has been translated into fifteen languages. Her works have also appeared in English, French, Italian, German, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Dutch and several South Slavic languages.
Alongside her fiction, Babnik Ouattara is an acclaimed literary critic and translator, best known for introducing the works of African writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Slovenian readers. She has held leading positions within the Slovene Writers’ Association and the Slovenian Book Agency, curated literary festivals, taught Slovenian language and literature, and regularly leads creative writing workshops.
She is also the founder of Hirondelle Publishing ( www.hirondelle.si), an independent publishing house dedicated to multilingual literature and literary exchange between Central Europe, Africa and the Arab world, and editor of the literary platform Jantarna lastovka (Amber Swallow: www.jalastovka.si), which promotes international literature, criticism and cultural dialogue.
NIKOLAY TERZIYSKI
Nikolay Terziyski (1983) is a screenwriter and co-host of a popular TV show about politics and literature. His debut novel Excommunication (2017) gained a huge fanbase as the book’s first edition sold out in less than six months. Excommunication won first prize in the Prose category at the prestigious national competition for debut Yuzhna Prolet. It was also shortlisted for the Peroto award for its contribution to the Bulgarian literary context. With his second book Chronicles of the Unknown (2019), Terziyski firmly established himself as a novelist with deep interest in family histories with their roots and branches deep into the past, the inevitability of destiny, love and hatred, war and compassion. Stars Under the Eyelids is Terziyski’s third novel, published in 2022 which hit the shelves in Macedonian in 2025 (Tri Publishing Centre) and is in the works for Arabic and Croatian. Rodinia is Nikolay’s latest title which was warmly received by both critics and audiences.
MIKE DOWNEY
Mike Downey is an author, film maker, and activist. As a non-fiction writer, Mike has published on a wide range of subjects and has garnered a vast archive of collected writings in publications from Vogue to Variety, from Screen to Stills to Cineaste, having co-founded the Moving Pictures media publishing group in the nineties. As a film maker he has worked with writers like James Ellroy, Gunter Grass, Colm Toibin, Lee Hall, David Grossmann and Vice founder Shane Smith, as well as an eclectic range of directors including Agnieszka Holland, Volker Schloendorff, Peter Greenaway, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Asghar Farhadi, Vivian Qu, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf. As Chairman of the European Film Academy he was the co-founder of the International Coalition for Film Makers at Risk and for a decade was a Trustee of the White Ribbon Alliance. Former Thomas Ewing Visiting Professor of Film at Ohio University, in 2021 he became the Honorary President of the LUX Film Award, presented by the European Parliament, and in the same year he was he was awarded an O,B.E. in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to British Cinema. In 2022 the University of Warwick presented Mike with a Doctor of Literature degree, honoris causa (D.Litt.), for his contribution to World Cinema, in September 2026 he received another Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgian Film Industry at the Batumi International Film Festival, following similar accolades from Iceland, the United States and the Czech Republic. At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, Mike produced two films in competition, Ryusuke Hamaguchii’s All of a Sudden and Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales.
ISTRIA BLACK is the second part of the THREE COLOURS ISTRIA trilogy, after the worldwide bestseller ISTRIA GOLD featuring the part of the world which Mike Downey calls home: Istria.
HRISTINA RADOVIĆ ANDRIĆ
Hristina Radović Andrić was born on January 15, 1970, in Belgrade, Serbia. Before this, her second book, she led an exciting and emotionally rich life full of ups and downs, from being a Pioneer under Tito, through her years as a student at the Academy of Applied Arts, to becoming a single and self-reliant mother.
Her distinctive superpower is her persistent ability to start from scratch, each time with an understated enthusiasm expressed through small acts of personal rebellion.
She has explored fashion, both on and off the runway, as well as interior design, drawing, painting, and digital collage, with some of her work exhibited publicly. She spent most of her professional life as a graphic designer, receiving multiple awards for her work. Always drawn to challenges and constant change, she spent seven years as the creative partner of a nightclub, organizing its music and other programs, as well as running a small, dark, but above all exceptionally artistic gallery.
She published a collection of illustrated stories, The Canoe with Thin Letters Goes Faster.
She lives a little bit everywhere, but mostly in nature.
Although a widow, she has found the love of her life again.
She has two children and four dogs.
ZINOVIA VASILEIADI
Zinovia Vasileiadi is a psychologist, psychotherapist, and psychodramatist. She works as a school psychologist at a private educational institution and has been in private practice for nearly twenty years. Throughout her professional career, she has worked with a wide range of population groups and their diverse needs; however, her primary focus has become family therapy and supporting families and children. She has extensive training in special education and psychoanalytic intervention, and she was awarded the Sandler Memorial Prize by the British Psychoanalytical Society. In recent years, she has also become active in the field of literature, having published various children’s books. She is the mother of two children and dreams of a world in which the spirit of childhood is embraced and nurtured by people of all ages.