Translated with DeepL.
Original language: Deutsch
Svetlana Alexievich
Journalist and writer from Minsk/Belarus (born in 1948). In Belarus, authors critical of the regime are subject to repression and threats to their lives. Alexievich's books are also banned in her home country, while they have been translated worldwide and adapted for plays and documentary films. She has received numerous prizes, including the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize of the City of Osnabrück (2001) and the Kurt Tucholsky Prize of the Swedish PEN (1996). She is particularly known for founding her own literary genre - the "novel in voices", a documentary prose based on interviews in which the original voices of the interviewees are artistically condensed into a panorama of the soul. Her volumes of prose represent an impressive history of mentality - not only of the Soviet Union: Der Krieg hat kein weibliches Gesicht (1985, Engl. 1987), Die letzten Zeugen (1985, Engl. 1989), Zinkjungen. Afghanistan und die Folgen (1989, Engl. 1992), Im Banne des Todes (new title Seht mal, wie ihr lebt, 1993, Engl. 1994) and finally the volume Tschernobyl: Eine Chronik der Zukunft, for which she received the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding in 1998.
Siham Bouhlal
Writer and translator from Casablanca/Morocco (born in 1966) now lives in Paris. In her short, elegant poems about love and death, she dispenses with all punctuation in order to make the rhythm of the texts tangible. Bouhlal writes her poems in French, but with their richness of color and fragrance they are in a distinctly Arabic tradition. Bouhlal has now published three volumes of poetry: Poèmes bleus (2005), Songe d'une nuit berbèrer ou La tombe d'épines (2007), Corps Lurnière (2008). Her first volume of prose, Princesse Amazigh, was also published in 2009.
Laslo Blaškovic
Novelist, poet and essayist from Novi Sad/Serbia (born in 1966), is director of the cultural center in Novi Sad and editor at the literary magazine Polja (Felder). His intimate prose depicts a tragicomic everyday life, often ironic and parodic, sometimes tinged with cynicism. Blaškovi'c plays with details of his own biography, but also with literary role models or personalities from the literary scene in his home town. His most important works include the poetry collection Žene pesnika (The Poets' Wives, 2006), the novels Svadbeni marš (Wedding March, 1997) and Turnir grbavaca (The Tournament of the Hunchbacks, 2007) as well as the story Pri'ca o Malaksalosti (Tales of Malaise, 2010). Laslo Blaškovi'c's prose and poems have been translated into English, French, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Slovenian. The novel Schmuck der Madonna (2011) has been published in German.
Amir Hassan Cheheltan
Writer from Tehran/Iran (born 1956), is considered one of his country's most important authors and a sharp-eyed analyst of the political situation. After studying in England, he returned to a war-torn Iran in 1981. His novel The Lamentation of Qassem, which he wrote during his military service, was only allowed to be published in 2002 under strict conditions. In 1998, when the situation for critical intellectuals in Iran became life-threatening, he was able to go to Italy as "Writer in Residence" of the International Parliament of Writers. His novel Tehran, City without Heaven was written there. Since his return to Tehran in 2001, Cheheltan has also worked as a screenwriter and essayist, including for the Frankfurter Allgemeine and Süddeutsche Zeitung newspapers. He is also known for his short story collection Am stummen Fenster (1979) and the novel Teheran Revolutionsstraße (2009), which has not yet been allowed to be published in his home country.
