Asal Dardan (1978, Tehran) is an author and publicist. She was awarded the Caroline Schlegel Prize for essay writing in 2020 for her text ‘Neue Jahre’. Her essay collection Betrachtungen einer Barbarin was nominated for the Clemens Brentano Prize in 2022 and the German Non-Fiction Prize in 2021. As a freelance author, she writes with a focus on socio-political topics for Zeit Online and Die Presse, among others. Dardan lives and works in Berlin and on the Swedish island of Öland.

Ibou Coulibaly Diop (1979, Segatta) is a literary scholar, curator, and lecturer. He is a jury member of Resonance–A Festival of Black German-Language Fiction, curated by Sharon Dodua Otoo. He regularly publishes on the literature of transculturality and the significance of African literature in the world of tomorrow. He currently works alongside the Berlin Senate to implement ways of remembering colonialism, and for the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, where he plays an active part in the Competence Centre for Decolonization. Diop lives and works in Berlin.

Beatrice Faßbender (1972, Reinbek) works for Berenberg Verlag and the Nordic Embassies as a journalist, presenter, and translator. She has translated poetry and prose by authors such as Eliot Weinberger, Priya Basil, Jeffrey Yang, and Kathy Page. She was a fellow of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, Art Omi: Writers at Ledig House in New York, and the German Translators’ Fund. She is the editor of the anthology New York. Eine literarische Einladung (2014). Faßbender lives in Berlin.

Khuê Phạm (1982, Berlin) is a journalist and writer. For her journalistic work the Zeit editor was awarded the Deutscher Reporter:innenpreis and nominated for the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize. Her debut novel Wo auch immer ihr seid (2021) is loosely based on the story of her own family. The English translation Brothers and Ghosts will be published next year. With Alice Bota and Özlem Topçu, she published Wir neuen Deutschen (2012) about the identity of second-generation immigrants in Germany. Phạm lives and works in Berlin.

Olga Radetzkaja (1965, Amberg) is a translator who has translated works by, among others, Viktor Shklovsky, Boris Poplavsky, Maria Stepanova, and Polina Barskova into German. She has received numerous awards for her work, most recently the Brücke Berlin Literatur- und Übersetzungspreis 2020 (together with Maria Stepanova) and the Straelener Übersetzerpreis of the Kunststiftung NRW 2019. She is also an editor at the magazine OSTEUROPA. Radetzkaja lives and works in Berlin.

Cia Rinne (1973, Gothenburg) is a poet and artist. She studied philosophy and languages in Frankfurt, Helsinki, and Athens. Her work has been shown internationally in galleries and museums, most recently at Marabouparken konsthall, Stockholm. She is the laureate of the Prix littéraire Bernard Heidsieck-Centre Pompidou 2019. She also wrote the libretti Wasting my Grammar (2024), a score for Neue Vocalsolisten, and Science Frictions (2023). Her book sentences (2019) was shortlisted for the Prix du livre d’artiste Bob Calle. Rinne lives and works in Berlin.

Deniz Utlu (1983, Hannover) is a writer and essayist. He received the Bavarian Book Prize for his novel Vaters Meer (2023), as well as the Alfred Döblin Prize for an excerpt from the book. In 2019, the novel Gegen Morgen was published. His novel Die Ungehaltenen (2014) was adapted for the stage at the Maxim Gorki Theatre, Berlin. Utlu researches human rights at the Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte, Berlin. He teaches literary writing at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig and at the Institute of Language Arts, Vienna. Utlu lives and works in Berlin.
www.denizutlu.de