Éditrice née en 1954, Vera Michalski-Hoffmann a développé avec son époux Jan Michalski le groupe éditorial Libella, actif en Europe dans divers domaines, de la littérature aux arts. Depuis 1987, de nombreux·ses auteur·rices ont été publié·es en français, en polonais et en anglais dans différentes maisons d’édition parmi lesquelles Noir sur Blanc, Buchet-Chastel, Phébus ou Wydawnictwo Literackie. En 2004, Vera Michalski-Hoffmann crée la Fondation Jan Michalski pour l’écriture et la littérature en mémoire de son mari afin de perpétuer leur engagement commun envers les acteur·rices de l’écrit, de soutenir la création littéraire et d’encourager la pratique de la lecture.

The Danish writer Jens Christian Grøndahl was born in 1959 in Copenhagen, where he still resides. After studying philosophy, he trained in film directing at the National Film School of Denmark before turning to writing, publishing his first novel, Kvinden i midten (Vindrose), in 1985. He is now the author of a prolific body of work—comprising novels, essays, and children’s books—translated into around thirty languages. The recipient of numerous international literary awards, including the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature in 2007 for Piazza Bucarest (Gallimard, 2007, originally published in Danish under the same title in 2004 by Lindhardt og Ringhof), he was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2009. Among his works available in English translation are Silence in October (HarperCollins, 2000), Lucca (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003), An Altered Light (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006), and Often I Am Happy (Twelve, 2017). In 2025, he brought out Fra i nat sover jeg på taget (Gyldendal). In this novel, he revisits his favored themes—love, its shadows and silences—through the story of an aging and ailing man whose path crosses once again with a youthful love.

Born in 1975 in Geneva, Nicolas Grospierre is a Franco-Polish visual artist and photographer. He wholly embraced his artistic calling following studies at Paris’s Institut d’études politiques and the London School of Economics. Now based in Poland, he sees modern architecture as central to his practice, putting it in dialogue with the themes of collective memory and the Anthropocene. In fusing different mediums he creates photo installations that offer viewers halls of mirrors and plays of light. He was awarded a Golden Lion at the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture. His work has been exhibited in museums throughout Europe and the Americas. In 2026, his photographic series Heliograms is exhibited at the Łazienki Palace Museum in Warsaw.

Born in 1989 in Jerusalem, Karim Kattan is a Palestinian and French writer. He holds a PhD in comparative literature and is the author of fiction, essays, and poetry collections translated into several languages. His work has appeared in Le Monde, Mediapart, Libération, The Paris Review, and The Dial, among others. Among his novels, Le palais des deux collines (Elyzad, 2021 ; in English, The Palace on the Higher Hill, Fondery Editions, 2025) won the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie, and L’Éden à l’aube (Elyzad, 2024) received several distinctions, including the Grand Prix du Roman Métis. In 2025, his collection Hortus Conclusus was published by L’Extrême Contemporain, exploring themes of displacement, belonging, and identity, as well as individual and collective memory—motifs that run throughout his work.

Patrícia Melo was born in 1962 in Brazil and is a highly regarded novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. She has received numerous internationally recognized awards, including the Prêmio Jabuti (2001), the LiBeraturpreis (2013), the Deutscher Krimi Preis (1998 and 2014), and the Indies Book of the Year Award (2023). Comprising around a dozen noir novels and translated into several languages, her body of work offers a raw and unflinching portrayal of a fragmented contemporary Brazil, scarred by violence and poverty. Published in English by Bloomsbury Publishing are The Killer (1997), In Praise of Lies (1999), Inferno (2002), Black Waltz (2004), and Lost World (2009); followed by The Body Snatcher (Bitter Lemon Press, 2015) and The Simple Art of Killing a Woman (Restless Books, 2023), winner of the Grand Prix de l’héroïne Madame Figaro for the French translation.

An author, novelist and short-story writer, Scholastique Mukasonga was born in 1956 in Rwanda. Faced with the persecution of the Tutsi people, she was forced into exile in Burundi before settling in France in 1993. She wrote her first novel, Inyenzi ou les cafards (Gallimard, 2004), in English titled simply Cockroaches (Archipelago, 2016), in the aftermath of the tragedy of the 1994 Tutsi genocide during which thirty-seven members of her family were killed. Today her work boasts novels and short-story collections translated in over twenty languages. She has been awarded numerous prizes in France and internationally, including the 2012 Prix Renaudot for Notre-Dame du Nil (Gallimard, 2012), translated as Our Lady of the Nile (Archipelago, 2014), and the Prix de l’Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer for Julienne (2024). Two of her books, The Barefoot Woman (Archipelago, 2008) and Kibogo (Blackstone Publishing, 2020) were shortlisted for the National Book Award. In 2013, she was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. Her latest novel, Déjà jadis, déjà demain, will be published in spring 2026 by Gallimard.

Born in Cardenden, Fife, in 1960, Sir Ian Rankin is a Scottish novelist who lived in London and later in France before settling in Edinburgh, where he now resides. His native country, along with his passion for punk and rock music, infuses his crime fiction. An international bestseller, his series of novels featuring John Rebus—a cynical and melancholic Scottish inspector with a taste for whisky—includes twenty-five volumes translated into more than thirty languages. Several have been adapted for television. He notably won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel in 2004 for Resurrection Men (Mulholland Books, 2002), the Grand Prix de littérature policière in 2005 for Dead Souls (Mulholland Books, 1999; published in French as La mort dans l’âme, Le Rocher, 2004), as well as the prestigious Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2005 for his lifetime achievement. In 2024, Midnight and Blue was published by Mulholland Books, plunging Inspector Rebus into prison in a high-stakes locked-room drama.