The jury of the 2013 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature has awarded the Iranian writer Mahmoud Dowlatabadi for his novel The Colonel.

A publisher, Vera Michalski-Hoffmann has devoted herself to the promotion of literature through the publishing group she founded with Jan Michalski. Starting in 1986, they published a wide range of authors, in French and Polish translations, through Noir sur Blanc, Buchet-Chastel, Phébus and Wydawnictwo Literackie. In 2004, Vera Michalski created the Fondation Jan Michalski pour l’écriture et la littérature to promote reading and provide support for writers.

Marek Bieńczyk (born in 1956 in Milanówek, Poland), novelist, essayist, translator. His works include novels: Terminal, Tworki; a blend of a novel and an essay : Melancholy, Transparency ; and essays, Dürer’s Eyes, Wine Chronicles. He is a contributor to the magazine L’Atelier du roman. His books were translated into French, English, Spanish and German. He received many prizes, including, Paszport Polityki (1999), Władysław Reymont Prize (2000), Grand Prix du Festival Littératures du Monde (Bordeaux 2006), Grand Prix de la Francophonie de l’Académie française (2003), and most recently, the most prestigious Polish literary prize, Nike (2012) for his latest work, The Book of Faces. He is a member of the board of directors of the Polish PEN Club. He works at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The French writer and essayist, Yannick Haenel, is often inspired by history when writing his novels, in particular the one devoted to the life of a Polish resistance fighter, Jan Karski, which was awarded two prizes in 2009: Le Prix Interallié and le Prix du roman Fnac. He was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in January 2010.

Born in 1949 in Aberdeen, the United Kingdom, Isabel Hilton is a writer and journalist based in London. Between 1973 and 1975, she studied Sinology at the University of Edinburgh, before going on to further her studies at the University of Languages and Cultures of Beijing and later at Fudan University of Shanghai. She has worked at several newspapers as a columnist, including The Sunday Times in 1977, The Independent in 1986, and The Guardian in 1997. The host of The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4 between 1995 and 1998, she joined BBC Radio 3 in 1999, where she has presented Night Waves. She published her first book, The Search for the Panchen Lama, in 1999. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of China Dialogue, an independent not-for-profit organization.

Born in 1935 in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Georges Nivat is a scholar of Slavic languages specialized in translating the Russian world for French-speakers. Emeritus professor at the University of Geneva, he is also rector of the International Centre Lomonosov. After graduating from the Sorbonne with a licence in Russian and English, he began a career in academia, taking a series of teaching posts at the universities of Toulouse, Lille, and Paris X. Concomitantly he worked with two French publishers, L’Âge d’Homme and Fayard, and later served as president of the Rencontres Internationales de Genève. The author of numerous books and French translations, he has published a trilogy on Russian culture with L’Âge d’Homme: Vers la fin du mythe russe (1982), Russie-Europe, la fin du schisme (1993) and Vivre en russe (2007). He was awarded an honorary degree by the Mohyla Academy in Kyiv.

Born in 1963 in Jalandhar, India, Tarun J. Tejpal is an Indian writer, publisher, and investigative journalist. He studied economics at the University of Chandigarh, then began writing for both local newspapers (India Today and The Indian Express) and international periodicals (The Paris Review, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Prospect), before mounting the online magazine Tehelka in 2000. At the same time, he founded the publishing house India Ink, where Arundhati Roy was published for the first time. He turned to writing fiction as well and in 2006 brought out his first novel, The Alchemy of Desire (Ecco), which has been translated into some twenty languages. It was awarded the Prix Millepages in 2007. He has since published The Story of My Assassins (Melville House) in 2009 and The Valley of Masks (HarperCollins) in 2011.

Born in 1965 in Sofia, Bulgaria, Ilija Trojanow is a Bulgarian-German writer, essayist, translator, and publisher. In 1971, his family fled Bulgaria for West Germany, where they received political asylum, then settled in Kenya for twelve years. Between 1984 and 1989, he studied law and ethnology at the University of Munich. In 1989, he founded Marino, a publishing house specialized in African literature, and began publishing essays and travel accounts dealing with Africa as well as German translations of African authors. His first novel, Der Weltensammler (2006, published in English as The Collector of Worlds, 2007), was awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize the same year of its original publication. His other titles available in English are Custodians of the Sun, Along the Ganges (2005), Mumbai to Mecca (2008), and The Lamentations of Zeno (2016). In 2002, he became a member of PEN Federal Republic of Germany.