2021

Isabel Lucas is a journalist and literary critic. She started to do journalism on television and has since passed through the editorial staff of some of the main Portuguese newspapers and magazines. Freelance since 2012, she writes regularly for Público newspaper, collaborates with Ler and has collaborated with several national and international publications. Among many of his work in various journalistic areas, he has featured in articles and interviews with some of the most celebrated American authors.

Renate Punka wears three hats in her daily professional life. She is managing director of Janis Roze Publishers – one of the oldest and most respectable publishing houses, the home of many established and aspiring writers from Latvia and, mostly, from abroad.

Ben Andoni was born in Tirana. He studied Geography and History. Since 1996, his main profession has been as a journalist. For 12 years, he was the manager of a National Cultural Supplement. He works regularly for columns concerned with national politics and Kosovar issues. He has translated more than 20 prominent authors from Slavic and English literature. He also published 5 books of his own, concerned with history, publicity and geographic issues, and is the co-authors of some reports of the Civil Society. 

Anahit Avetisyan is a literary translator and conference interpreter. She holds a Master degree in translation from the Ecole de traduction et d’interpretation of the University of Geneva, and was also part of the Fellowship Programme in Paris organized by BIEF and French National Book Center (CNL) for foreign publishers, editors and rights managers.

Mariana Cocieru, PhD, is head of the Folklore Sector of the Institute of Romanian Philology „B. P.-Hasdeu”. She is especially interested in intangible cultural heritage, folklore, ethnography, ethnology, and literature. She published several books, including Ethnofolkloric constituents in the prose of Romanian writers from Bessarabia (1960–1980) (Chisinau, 2018, and coordinated several multimedia publications, including Voice archive: Interviews with personalities in the field of culture (in 20 volumes) (Chisinau, 2016, 2019).

Born in 1973, he holds Master degrees in Marketing and Management as well as Law from the University of National and World Economy, Sofia. He has been selling books for more that 25 years and has experience in various forms of trade - direct sales, online - including 15 years as a sales manager at one of the largest bookshop chains in Bulgaria.Since 2012, he is a managing partner in Bookoholic Ltd, an import and wholesale company, trading with English, German, French, Spanish and Bulgarian books.

José Jorge Letria is a poet, writer, playwright and journalist born in Cascais in 1951. Awarded with numerous literary prizes, his works are translated in over a dozen languages, with both national and international awards. He is also a song writer and author of radio and television programs. He has a PhD in Communication Sciences and is President of the Portuguese Society of Authors.

Armen Ohanyan (b.1979; pen name Armen of Armenia) is a fiction writer, essayist and literary translator. He holds a BA in philosophy from Yerevan State University and the graduate certificate in Translation (CTRA) from American University of Armenia. He’s the author of the story collection [The Return of Kikos], and the trilogy of novels [Mommyland], where for the first time in Armenian literature LGBT people are presented under a positive light. He’s the president of Armenian PEN Center (since 2017), board member of TIAC and Human Rights House Yerevan.

Leanne Ellul lectures in Maltese language and literature at the Ġ.F Abela Junior College as part of the University of Malta. She writes both poetry and prose. In the past she has written for theatre and still writes both textbooks and readers for children. Ellul has also translated a number of works to Maltese. She is part of a number of entities that have the Maltese language and culture at heart, namely Inizjamed and HELA.  

José Manuel Bernardes Pereira Lello (1958) has worked as an administrator at Livraria Lello since 1983. He is also part of the Lello Editores publishing house, both of which are recognised institutions in Portugal and beyond. José Manuel also served as the President of the Portuguese Association of Publishers and Booksellers (APEL) between 1995 and 1998, and was a member of the board of Portugal for the country’s representation as guest of honour at Frankfurt Book fair in 1997.