Yoko Tawada was born in Tokyo (Japan) in 1960. From 1982 to 2006 she lived in Hamburg. Since 2006, she has been living in Berlin. Tawada studied Literary Studies in Tokyo, Hamburg, and Zurich. She wrote her dissertation under the supervision of Sigrid Weigel. She has been a Member of the German Academy for Language and Literature since 2012. Tawada writes in German and Japanese. She received numerous awards and stipends, among them, the Akutagawa Prize 1993, the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize 1996, the Tanizaki Prize 2003, the Goethe Medal 2005, a Guest Lectureship on Intercultural Poetics at the University of Hamburg 2011, the Yomiuri Prize for Literature 2013, the DAAD Chair in Contemporary Poetics at New York University 2015, and the Kleist Prize 2016. Her most recent publications are Ein Balkonplatz für flüchtige Abende (2016) and akzentfrei (2016).

Jeffrey Angles (1971) is an American poet, writing in Japanese, translator and professor of Japanese literature and language. He studied Japanese literature at Ohio State University and earned his Ph.D. in 2004 with a dissertation about the literary representation of male homoeroticism. He translated numerous important Japanese poets such as Chimako Tada Mutsuo Takahashi and Hiromi Itō. In 2009–2010, Angles was a visiting researcher at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto and in 2011 he was a visiting professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Tokyo. He was awarded numerous awards including the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award of the Academy of American Poets in 2011 and the Yomiuri Prize in 2017 in Tokyo, a prize comparable to America’s Pulitzer Prize. His latest publications are These Things Here and Now: Poetic Responses to the March 11, 2011 Disasters (2016) and Watashi no hizukehenkosen (My International Date Line, 2016).

Bei Dao (1949) is a Chinese essayist, poet and literary scholar. Many of his works have been translated into English, among them The August Sleepwalker (1990), Landscape Over Zero (1995), Unlock (2000) and most recently City Gate, Open Up: A Memoir (2017). Selected poems have been published in a German edition in 2009 as Das Buch der Niederlage by Carl Hanser in Munich, essays in German 2011 as the book Gottes chinesischer Sohn – Essays) by Weidle in Bonn. Bei Dao received numerous awards for his work including the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (1990), the Jeanette-Schocken-Preis (2005) and the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings (2015). He was a Stanford Presidential Lecturer and is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Professor of Humanities at the Center for East Asian Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 

Anneke Brassinga (1948) is a Dutch poet, novelist, essayist and translator. She debuted in 1987 as a poet with the book Aurora, in 1993 her first novel Hartsvanger has been published. In 2005, her collected lyric works have been released under the title Wachtwoorden. Verzamelde herziene gedichten, 1987-2003. Anneke Brassinga received multiple awards for her work including the VSB-Poesiepreis (2002), the Constantijn Huygensprijs  (2008) and the P.C. Hooft-prijs (2015). A collection of her poems has been published in German by Matthes & Seitz in Berlin 2016 with the title Fata Morgana, dürste nach uns!.

Teju Cole (1975) is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian. He studied medicine and art history in Kalamazoo (Michigan), London and New York. In 2007 a blog by him was published under the title Every Day is for the Thief (Jeder Tag gehört dem Dieb, Hanser 2015). Followed by Open City. A Novel (Open City, Suhrkamp 2012) in 2011 and the collection of essays Known and Strange Things (Vertraute Dinge, Fremde Dinge, Hanser 2016) in 2016. Cole is a regular contributor to renowned publication media including The New York Times, The New Yorker and Granta. Since 2011, he has taught as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College in New York. He received numerous awards including the New York City Book Award (Fiction, 2011), the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award (2012) and the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize (2015). Cole’s most recently published work is Blind Spot (2017) – a multimedia diary of years of nearly constant travel combining original photos and prose in a very innovative way.

Hiromi Itō (1955) is a Japanese poet and novelist. She studied literature at Aoyama-Gakuin-University. In 1982, her first book of poems Aoume (Unripe Plums) was published. In 1991 a collection of essays and poems followed titled Noro to saniwa to (The Shamaness and Her Interpreter). Her book Kawara arekusa from 2005 that blurs the lines between prose and poetry was translated into English as Wild Grass on the Riverbank in 2015. The Residenz Verlag in Salzburg is responsible for German translations as Mutter töten. Gedichte und Prosa in 1993 and Das anarchische Aschenputtel. Märchen als Medizin für den Hausgebrauch in 1999. Hiromi Itō received multiple renowned literary prizes in Japan, including the Akutagawa Prize (1998 and 1999), the Takami Jun Prize (2006) and the Izumi Shikibu Prize (2008).

Kim Hyesoon (1955) is a literary scholar and one of  the most important contemporary poets of South Korea. She studied Korean literature at Kangwon National University and Konkuk University. Her debut Tto tarŭn pyŏl esŏ (From another star) was published in 1981. Several other collections of poems followed, among them Na ŭi up'anisyadŭ, Sŏul (My Upanishad, Seoul) in 1994 and in 2008 Tangshin ŭi ch'ŏt (Your First). In 2002, a selection of her poems was translated into German under the title Die Frau im Wolkenschloss. Gedichte by Pendragon in Bielefeld. Kim Hyesoon received multiple literary prizes in South Korea including the Contemporary Poetry Award (2000), the Midang Poetry Award (2006) and the Daesan Poetry Award (2008).

Barbara Köhler (1959) is a German poet and translator. She studied literature at the Johannes R. Becher Literature Institute in Leipzig. In 1991, her first collection of poems was published, Deutsches Roulette , followed 1995 by the poetry collections  Blue Box, both by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt, and 2013 36 Ansichten des Berge by Dörlemann in Zürich. Among her prose work are Wittgensteins Nichte. Vermischte Schriften, Mixed Media and Niemands Frau. Gesänge zur Odyssee, published by Suhrkamp in 1999 and 2007. In 2009, she was Poet in Residence at the University Duisburg-Essen, in 2012 she held the Thomas Kling Poetics Lectureship at the University Bonn. Barbara Köhler was awarded multiple literature prizes including the Clemens-Brentano-Preis (1996), the Joachim-Ringelnatz-Preis (2008) and the Peter-Huchel-Preis (2016). Her most recent publication is Istanbul, zusehends. Gedichte, Lichtbilder, published by Lilienfeld Verlag in Düsseldorf 2015.

Morten Søndergaard (1964) is a Danish writer, translator, editor and sound artist. He attended the Danis Writer’s School in Copenhagen and studied comparative literature. He debuted in 1992 with Sahara i mine hænder (Sahara in My Hands) followed by further poetry collections including Ubestemmelsessteder (Indeterminate Places) in 1996 and Bier dor sovende (Bees die Sleeping, 1998). Morten Søndergaard is also known for his sound installations. In 2004, the audio play Monte Altissimo – Falling off the White Mountain was produced at the workshop of DeutschlandRadio Berlin. Publications that were translated into German are among others Bienen sterben im Schlaf. Gedichte in 2007 and the experimental language object Die Wortapotheke (Wordpharmacy) in 2012, both published by litteraturverlag roland hoffmann. Prizes he was awarded with for his work include the Michael Strunge Prisen (1998), the Beatrice Prisen (2006) and the Morten Nielsens Mindelegat (2008). Most recently published was the poetry collection Døden er en del af mit navn in 2016.

Monique Truong (1968) is an American writer of Vietnamese origin. She studied literature at Yale University and law at Columbia University School of Law. In 2003, her debut novel The Book of Salt was published. It was followed in 2010 by the novel Bitter in the Mouth, published as a German translation with the title Bitter im Mund by C.H. Beck in Munich 2010. She published numerous essays for publication media including the New York Times’ T Magazine. Monique Truong received multiple prices including the Stonewall Book Award in 2004, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award (2004) and in 2011 the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award (2011). She was a Guggenheim Fellow (2010), Princeton University’s Hodder Fellow (2007/2008) and Sidney Harman Writer in Residence at Baruch College (2016). Recently, she published a collection of reportage by the Irish-Greek author Lafcadio Hearn, who coined the western image of Japan in the 19th century. Itwas translated into German with the title Vom Lasterleben am Kai. Große by C.H. Beck in Munich 2017.

Jan Wagner (1971) is a German writer and translator. He studied English in Hamburg, Dublin and Berlin. Together with Thomas Girst, he published the poetry box Die Außenseite des Elementes as a loose-leaf collection from 1995–2003. In 2001, his first collection of poems Probebohrung im Himmel was published by Berlin Verlag. Several more books of poems followed including Achtzehn Pasteten, 2007 by Berlin Verlag, and Regentonnenvariationen by Hanser Berlin in 2012. Wagner has translated poems among others by James Tate, Matthew Sweeney and Robin Robertson. He received numerous prizes including the Anna-Seghers-Preis (2004), the Leipzig Book Fair Prize (2015) and the Georg-Büchner-Preis (2017). His most recently published work is Der verschlossene Raum. Beiläufige Prosa, by Hanser Berlin 2017.